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Well, if you come by the Mansion, there will probably be at least one person hiding, but I do so look forward to seeing what happens with this guy

Aiden grimaced. "It's really too hot in the middle of the night, so the best I can do is try to avoid the absolute worst." Her humour did soften his awareness of the cloying heat, though, and the running sweat along his shoulder blades and wrists became a little less annoying. Liz's question about the lawn brought it all rushing back, though, and he tried to be surreptitious about wiping the sweat on his hands off on his shorts. There wasn't really anything he could to about the rest of the sweat without being really obvious, unfortunately. "I... don't handle heat well," he admitted, focussing on the dog to avoid catching her eye. "I have a feeling I'm, er, rather more suited to winter than summer."

Aiden was completely bewildered by Liz's answer. This dog she was with, that she was so comfortable with, wasn't hers? And furthermore, he didn't belong to a friend, but was rather a friend himself? Ai understood people being very attached and emotionally close to their pets, but... there was just something strange about meeting up from time to time with a dog to hang out. He tried not to look confused, but not looking like things wasn't his greatest strength. He liked to think that it wasn't a complete weakness, but he was definitely still working on the whole outward emotional control thing. Practice made better, right?

Yes. Movie. Good. He tried to glance over at Evelyn without moving more than his eyes. She didn't think this was too weird, did she? She could probably still leave without getting too hung up over manners at this point. She wasn't moving, though, so it must not be too bad. It was probably just him. He wouldn't be surprised if all the awkward he ever noticed was entirely him. Other people were supposed to like dealing with other people.

"Lot of room for art in anime," Ai mused aloud. Graphics, storylines, characters, music... There were a lot of things that could bump a series or movie up from 'okay' to 'wow' without the producing studio just flinging money at the project like people commenting on online geek store products always seemed to try. They were silly. The only way for those sites to take your money was if you gave them all the required information and legal permission, so screeching in caps lock about it wasn't going to do much of anything.

"If you start talking about one thing, chances are they're going to rope you into watching a ton of other stuff," Aiden said, idly and offhand as his attention gradually settled more firmly on the movie. Anime characters tended to have such interesting backgrounds, whether they were raised by another species' remnants or expertly cultivated into the perfect citizen before being cast adrift. "Maybe you should ask them to suggest some series. I suppose they know you reasonably well?"

"Erm... Aiden," Ai replied faintly. This girl.... talked a lot. And quickly. And totally knocked him aside, in terms of mental thinking ability or whatever. He bobbed along in her wake for a moment before he could process more than the part where she had introduced herself. She had introduced others. Picking out the names from the chaotic flurry of word-detritus, he peered at the mice. "...Hi.....?" he offered the rodents hesitantly. Real, normal mice? Supersmart mutant mice? Humans in mouse form? How was he supposed to know in this place?

"Oh.. I'm not freaked out." That counted as true, right? He wasn't running away and he didn't really feel a desire to try, although he was very thoroughly confused. He looked down at his sketchbook, and the confusion masking his prior maelstrom of more negative emotions lost some of its grip.

"Yeah. Lost my balance..." he explained sadly. "I... think it's a lost cause." He dabbed at the page with a cleaner piece of shirt. The shirt became dirtier but the page didn't become any cleaner as far as he could see. "It wasn't anything important. Just a doodle." Giving up entirely, he flipped the sketchbook closed and set it beside him, taking a few moments to make sure it was securely balanced. He could balance himself, and the sketchbook could stay balanced without him, but put them together and things just fell apart.

"Dun dada daaaah!"

Aiden blinked up from desperately trying to save his drawing from the mud (and completely and utterly failing, because dirty water did have a certain tendency to soak into nicely absorbent paper) with a great deal of confusion. What he saw really didn't clarify things much. After a moment to adjust to looking into the brighter light of the open area nearby, he spotted what appeared to be a youngish girl. He really didn't want to assume much about people in this place, and he was in an appropriate mood to at least remember to attempt to avoid making such assumptions.

The probably-girl-person was... was she juggling? It kind of looked like it. Why would she be juggling? Was she practicing something? She kind of looked like she was looking at him. That was awkward. He should probably slink off under the trees before she noticed him and panicked or something. She didn't seem to be juggling anything big and dangerous, if her weird arm movements were indeed juggling as he presumed, but so long as she was juggling something it could hit her in the head or the eye or something if she were startled and dropped them.

She was getting closer and he hadn't had a chance to vanish. Great, now it would just be really obvious and awkward if he made a break for it. She must have seen him. Did she just not care? There were people like that. He was never going to be one of them, but there were people like that. Aiden only grew more bewildered as the girl in the strange costume flipped over and started walking on her hands.

Behind three mice pushing spools of some kind.

Wearing a fake tail.

And with enough energy and physical strength to flip herself back to her feet from a handstand.

What a bizarre kid. He supposed she was suited to this place, though. Anyone that weird probably ought to be a mutant. And, you know, associating with impeccably trained mice while sporting ears like that kind of hinted at her status too. Yeah....


So, what was he supposed to do now? Given the flourish she'd given, the grin she appeared to be giving him, and the whole general apparent focus of... everything, that had probably been a rehearsed sequence thing of some kind. A routine? Act? There was some multipurpose word that fit the situation. Whatever it was, though, people were supposed to clap, right? Except being the only person clapping was really, really awkward. Besides, he was busy trying to save his probably unsaveable sketchbook. "Um..." he said, before noticing that he really didn't have anything to say. What was more appropriate than solitary applause? "That was cool?" he offered hesitantly. It was, if strange and completely unexpected, but should he say that? He'd already said it. Well, should he apologize for saying it?

Weird things were so awkward.

"Student," Aiden replied. So she was older than him by a bit? "Probably going to be here another year at least." He could hardly go back, and going somewhere else wasn't going to fix anything. Might make a ton of things worse, because at least he didn't have to worry about paying for everything here and how he was supposed to afford, well, everything when he had no money, no job, and half a snowflake's chance in hell of getting one - and that was before any potential employers found out he was a mutant.

So yeah, another year to not think about the long term. Perfect. Hey, was she blushing less? Good. It was awkward talking to people who were blushing, especially when he didn't have the faintest clue or certainty as to why they were blushing in the first place. Maybe that was just what she did when she met new people? He sure didn't know.

Aiden bent down as the dog returned, triumphant, and scratched him around the ears for a moment before taking the stick and throwing it again. "Hey, worse things than a friendly dog." There was an almost melancholic note to his voice, and as soon as he noticed it himself he continued. "I used to have a dog like him. Older and lazier, but I remember him caring about things. Some things, anyway." One side of his mouth twitched wryly. "He's probably enjoying his quiet retirement."

Why was she behiiiiiiind hiiiiim? He successfully resisted the urge to feel around the edges of his sunglasses to see if there was any possibility that someone standing anywhere behind him could possible see any part of his messed-up eye at all, and strapped all of his attention to finding something to watch despite the potentially useless sunglasses making it nearly impossible for him to see much of anything.

"If it's educational, it comes straight back out," Aiden said resolutely. He was not watching something like that. Or, well, listening to and maybe kind of seeing, if the screen were bright enough with the movie. Some movies weren't very bright, right? Heh, like horror movies. He could be immune to the visual effects of horror movies! But it might be worse just listening to the idiots and never knowing when something was creeping right up around the corner and then BAM!

But he didn't think there would be very many horror movies sitting on the shelf in a school. Kids, you know. At any rate, chance was good and could be blamed very easily. Chance, in this case at least, was safe. Following her instructions, Aiden managed to catch the edge of the DVD tray with a finger and deftly slipped the disc itself in, giving the tray a little nudge to close it rather than fish around awkwardly for the button. As the machine whirred to life, he retreated to the couch to settled himself at one edge. It would be rude to take up the whole couch and make her sit somewhere else if they were watching a movie, after all, even if he didn't want to sit too close.