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"I've only ever lived in the city so I don't have much experience with animals.  Well, I used to have a couple of kitties and a dog.  Wish I could again but, you know, renting."  Owning a home was another pipe dream when you worked retail and especially owning a home in the city.  "I was one of those little girls who always wanted a pony.  Never happened though."  She laughed at the memory.

"I've seen a few of those stories myself," she grimaced.  "I try to live by a pacifist philosophy but, I mean, sometimes certain people just deserve to be punched in the nose!"  So maybe that wasn't the most extreme punishment one could conceive of, but it was the thought that mattered, right?  Some people were terrible and didn't deserve the lives they had.

"I hope so," she responded, sounding melancholy.  "When even mutants like me sometimes have problems, you know things are bad.  But more positively, I've met a lot of wonderful humans as well who are also super passionate about helping mutants.  Call me an optimist, but I like to think the good people outnumber the bad."  It was just the bad that got all the attention because they caused all the trouble.

A young boy sat down beside her, introducing himself as Chase.  Although she was now physically in her 20s, in some ways she was still a teenager.  At 16 she had ended up on the Brazil and spent a year as a deinonychus surviving in the rain forest.  That year was largely lost time, she had only small flashes of her life there.  Eventually she woke up, in a manner of speaking, and found herself feasting upon a dead human.  It was not a memory she cared to remember.  

A couple years later she had left the human world a second time, this time remaining closer to home a couple hours outside New York City and this time retaining her human mind.  Still, her second foray into the wild lasted over 2 years and if those two years taught her many things about hunting and general survival, they taught her nothing about emotional and mental development or what it was to be a human adult.

"I'm Amber," she whispered as the teacher started speaking.  She would have smiled but knew from experience that, now days, her smiling was less than reassuring.

The second arrival, introducing herself as Allegra, didn't seem nearly so comfortable in her presence as the first.  Amusement warred with distress at the reaction with amusement winning out by a narrow margin.  "Why not people?" Amber asked, raising her black eyes to meet those of the newcomer.  Her expression remained deadpan.  Maybe playing off her intimidation factor could be fun.

Just as the teacher started speaking, a robot girl entered.  The different, varied mutants made her miss Sanctuary and her little lost family all the more.

As her new teacher spoke, Amber decided not to mention the fact that she didn't technically need to learn any of the skills he suggested were necessities in life.  Eating was as simple as killing something and tearing flesh from bone.  She had lived in a den in the woods for years, so she had that covered.  Clothing was a human convention and a somewhat puzzling at that.  Still, even if she didn't technically need any of these things, she wanted to learn.  Part of being human again.  For the moment, she had no questions.

Amber hadn't meant be to out all night nor had she meant to wander quite so deep into areas some might consider dangerous.  Since her return to the human world from her self-imposed exile only a few weeks ago, she'd barely left the Mansion.  With the exception of an expedition to the Museum of Natural History in order to acquire her newest Kaprosuchus form, she hadn't gone further than the Mansion property lines.  She was getting claustrophobic and the only way to solve that was to leave for a few hours.

As was in her general nature, she left shortly after sunset, taking some transportable food with her.  For the early part of the night she just walked, enjoying the cool spring air.  No one bothered her and she she had no interest in speaking to anyone.  With all the effort she'd been putting into reintegrating into the human world, tonight was about her and her own peace of mind.  In solitude, she would find some of that peace.  As much as she desired to have a pack again, so too did she need time to be with her own thoughts.

After some time walking as a human, she found a dry, out of the way alcove where she was able to hide her robes and change shape.  As always, changing from one form to another was an excruciatingly painful experience, as bones shifted and muscles and flesh warped and twisted.  It was, however, mercifully quick and where once stood a human girl, now stood a deinonychus.  Instantly the world seemed more alive, blooming with the enhanced senses only a deadly predator like herself could have.  She'd missed this.  She'd needed this.

For most of the remainder of the night she continued her wanderings, experiencing the city in a different way than any human ever could.  She kept to the shadows, as out of sight of curious eyes as she could.  It was only as dawn was starting to color the sky that she returned to her robes and resumed her human form.  Being careful to cover every inch of skin except the slit of her eyes, it was with some trepidation that she started making her way back to the Mansion.  In the early dawn hours, before the sun was at its full strength, she could bear to be out for a while.  Unfortunately, every passing hour increased the dangers of the sun and she had neither money nor any type of identification on her.  Hopefully she hadn't wandered too far away from safety and she'd be able to make it back, without incident, before full daylight.

"Well, I've never actually been paid to play a festival," Ambrosia replied, feeling a little sheepish.  "Its kind of a volunteer things.  There are always lots of performers so we do renegade shows, away from the main stages.  Singing, dancing and playing, the atmosphere is amazing!  You should totally find a local festival some time and go.  Nothing compares."  She'd been going to festivals since before it was legal for her to drink.  

"That would be amazing!"  Her enthusiasm regarding making money with music was evident in her voice.  She took the paper offered with Cait's number and passed her one of her shop cards.  She'd gotten the cards printed herself.  On the front they had the shop name, her name and her number.  On the back was written 'If you're a mutant in need, please call.  There are people who can help.'

"I would love it if you could hook me up.  I've never been in a proper band before, but I'm pretty good."  It wasn't ego if it was true, right? 

Where could she hide long enough to change shapes and then sneak into the back area?  The bathroom might have been the obious answer but the problem with that was there was no way to stash her clothing for later retrieveal.  No, she needed somewhere else to hide.  Fortunately, by this late point in the evening the crowds of people were starting to thin out.  Perhaps, if she was quick enough, she might be able to jump behind one of the barriers without being seen and crowch in some of the display folliage.

Luck was with her that day.  Having spotted a display that would serve her purposes nicely, aptly enough a late cretaceous display housing a family of triceritops and lush jungle folliage, it took around 10 minutes of waiting before the moment came where no eyes were watching.  Heart pounding in her chest, she quickly slipped under the barricade and crowched behind an especially large fern.  The colour of her robes had been chosen specifically for this purposes, dark greens that blended in nicely with the plants surrounding them.  Once she had her privacy, it only took a minute for her form to shrink and distort and where once had been a young woman, now stood a tiny Mecistotrachelos.

Next was the challenge of getting from the display she had hidden herself within over to the doors leading to the research labs.  There were both advantages and challenges to being the size of a rat and some of those advantages and disadvantages were one in the same: People often weren't likely to look down.  Her diminutive size would largely work in her favour, so long as she could avoid being inadvertantly injured by the much larger throngs of humans.

As always happened when she assumed one of her dino forms, her senses alighted with sights, sounds and smells that no human with their dulled senses could ever imagine.  An arboreal insectivore, she was fast and agile for her size and possessed both excellent hearing and sight.  By her estimate, her best bet of success lay in skittering from one display to another, staying near to the walls and hopefully out of sight of curious eyes.

The ride to the museum was uneventful.  Wrapped in her robes as she was, the fact that she was a mutant was far less obvious than it would have been had she been wearing more conventional clothing.  In theory, she was an adult now so perhaps it was time to consider learning to actually drive so she didn't have to rely upon taxis to get where she needed to go.  It was always a risk, stepping into the vehicle of another and assuming they were both going to take here safely where she needed to go and also that they didn't have a great hatred of mutants.  

The lineup to get into the musuem was likewise uneventful.  Even during overcast days, she disliked being outside during the daylight.  She could feel the sun through the clouds and through the layers of robes, beaming down at her and theatening to burn her sensative skin.  Even with only the slits of her eyes and her hands exposed, the sun felt like an implicit threat.  For years, even before she had retreated from the human world, she had resented her weak human form.  Not only was it soft and fragile with senses far inferior to any other shape, but it couldn't tolerate the harmful rays of the sun for more than a few minutes without developing painful burns.  Sometimes it was hard to accept those limitations.

The original intent, once inside, was to go straight to her intended destination.  However, something about the place brought out the long lost little kid inside her and she couldn't resist the temptation to make her way slowly through the many different displays first.  It was hard, being among the throngs of humans but as discomfort warred with fascination, fascination won.  Of course, there was a special interest in the dinosaur exibits, but those creatures who lived in other eras of the earth's history were almost as fascinating to behold.

Only after exploring all the exibits that interested her did Ambert make her way to the back of the museum where the public was not allowed.  The next part would be the tricky part; finding a place where she could hide long enough to shapeshift into something small and unassuming.  Hopefully she could find a corner where her robes could be stashed for retrieval later, but even if not, there was nothing important in the pockets to be worried about leaving behind.