2014-08-14 The Face Within
This scene is rated Everybody
Warning: N/A
2014-08-14
Players: Ember Terrock
GMed by Random Acts of Spongebob
Title: The Face Within

Working powers drills earlier today managed to do what a day and more of running, gymnastics, and other physical exertion couldn't; bleed off the excess energy Ember had been enjoying since using the Asgardian runestone to heal her injuries. She's drained and not feeling the need to move anytime in the next week, but sleep isn't something she does anymore so she's now more or less hiding in the main library. This is a place that, so far as she knows, Drake doesn't frequent so she's more likely to avoid him the rest of the night in here. That she can work on getting a bigger head start on her studies for this year is just a bonus. But maybe that can wait while she sits in a comfortable chair with a fantasy novel in hand.

Days of setting up his new home, and still not quite knowing anyone around has driven this man to do the one thing that calms him: exploreing. Not realising the event that have gone on he wanders into the library ducking and turning sidewise to avoid hitting and getting stuck in the door. Since it is night he figured it would be empty, and a chance to find some good books. As always his little compaion Sparks, a pygmy marmoset is sitting on his shoulder chattering away in his ear. He looks to the tiny monkey and whispers "Cut it ou…" noticing Ember he cuts himself sort and begins scanning the books casualy while Sparks chitters away

Ember peeks up over the top of her book as she spots someone coming in. She's wearing herself in her normal personal illusion, so appears as a fairly normal teenage girl with side-braided brown hair, green eyes, and a very light tan. Spotting Terrock and his fuzzy friend, her eyebrows shoot up as she has to continue looking further up to get the full picture. Gods… she could almost join the marmoset on his other shoulder! "Oh. Hello. Didn't think anyone else would be coming in tonight. Are you new here, or just coming back from summer break?"

Terrock stops short. He himself is rather dressed up with a silk black blazer coat, and red vest underneath, but also down with average jeans and boots. Green and Amber colored eyes look almost coldly over Ember as he rubs his beard a moment. Though shy, sounds very confident as he answers "Hello, and yes I be new here Ms. I…also didn't think anyone would be here." rubs the top of his broken tusk hoping he dosn't seem to scary, or furry for that matter, as the back of his hands seem quite covered in hair.

Ember doesn't flinch at the new arrival's appearance. Under her illusions she's not exactly the stuff of dreams, herself. She closes her book and sets it on the table next to her before standing up and offering her hand. "I'm Ember Reynolds, one of the students here. Just moved in about two months ago. It's good to meet you." After the greeting, she nods to the library, "It usually is fairly empty in here at night. I just don't sleep so when I'm too tired for a workout in the gym I come in here for the quiet."

Terrock blinks "You don't sleep?" cant his head, he himself is not entirely used to the idea of other mutants. None the less he take the hand, and is amzingly gentle for his size as he give it a shake "I am Terrock Kord Bolin. It is nice to meet you Ms. Renalds". He is rather formal for a guy his apparent age "I am not a student….but I heard this place is…special" Terrock stops a moment and seems to instinctiely rub his thumb on her hand, noting the unsual texture "Hmmmmm."

Ember is in the process of nodding in response to the school being special when Terrock pauses and seems to have noticed the poor texture of her illusory skin. She sighs softly and nods. "Yeah, it's fake. Although I'm told the technical term for my abilities is advanced photokinesis, my main skill is illusions." She gestures to herself, "This is what I looked like… before." She takes her hand back and clasps it with the other in front of her, going quiet for a brief moment. "But yes. Everyone here is a mutant, with one degree of ability or another."

Sparks chatters something into Terrock's ear. He looks unsure about responding to the little monkey befor doing so "Don't you think that a bit rude?". The monkey sighs and pulls the giants ear "Hey! Fine, fine I'll ask." He turns to Ember and coughs a moment "Well Ms….if you don't mind…what do…you look like now?"

Ember gets an amused expression as Terrock has a brief conversation with a tiny monkey-like critter small enough for him to inhale. She moves so she's closer to the light by her desk (which is turned up brighter than any others in the room) and says softly to herself. "Why not? Doreen has her squirrels." When Terrock asks what she looks like, she opens her mouth to respond rudely, but stops herself. One, they're in a library and shouting just doesn't go with the terrain. Two, she knows she's only over-sensitive about it today because of… other issues. She closes her eyes, counts to herself slowly to regain her calm, then opens them again. "Basically I look like a badly formed, cancer patient, waxworks model of myself. Not that I have cancer, I'm just… changing."

Terrock looks over Ember a moment noteing her general change in deminor. He smiles reavling the second set of rather large canines going downwards instead of up like his exposed ones "Well….I can understand how that must feel." glances to sparks "Told you it was a bad idea", looks back to Ember seeming to at least relax some "I seen alot of diffrent folks that don't count as normal. I am sure you are not that bad."

Ember returns the smile, "That would depend on who you ask." She starts relaxing to more of her previous demeanor as she runs her hand through the space around her table lamp, the light seeming to thicken and flow in a way barely descernable even to ehnanced senses. She seems to come to a decision and nods towards the door. "Do me a favor? Go and turn on the rest of the lights? It takes me a minute to shut down the mental locks on my personal illusion. More light to work with helps."

Terrock turns to Sparks "You heard the Misses, let get crackin." Sparks jumps off his shoulder, an agile and quick beast it begins turning on any switches it finds. In the mean while Terrock goes about finding the other light switches. Togeather they turn on all desk lights, the over lights, personal lights, a flash light, and even boot up the computers so the screen lights are on. Looks back to Ember as Sparks stands on a table near him "That should be all of them"

The more light that's added, the more obvious it is to even non-enhanced vision that a significant portion of it is flowing like stellar gas towards a central gravity point: Ember. And the more light she gathers into herself and into the halo-like aura surrounding her body, the more /real/ she starts to seem. Details in her personal illusion that she doesn't normally maintain when she's alone snap into place until even superhuman eyes can't tell the difference between fiction and reality.

And then, with no fanfare at all, it's gone.

Instead of the casual clothing of her illusion, she's dressed in a simple set of fitted grey tank top and darker grey bike shorts. She is smaller than she previously appeared, barely five-foot tall with reedy limbs and a head that looks slightly too large for her frame. Exceedingly pale, almost waxy white skin is the predominant feature. Where her eyes should be there is instead a band of opalescent mineral hardness across her face, with not much of a nose or ears (they're slightly melted looking) and when she offers a timid smile her teeth aren't teeth so much as hardened ridges of the same opalescent material. There are sparse, mangey patches of short pale hair on her head and she doesn't seem to have any toe or fingernails. Across her body there are places where the waxy surface of her skin is broken by slashes and patches of the opalescent hardness; left shin and right shoulder being the largest patches but there are several places that have the appearance of what would be extreme ammounts of scar tissue on a normal person.

When she shrugs and turns her face back towards Terrock, her expressions seem a bit off-center. As if her bones can't quite match up with her flesh. "So…"

Sparks jumps into Terrock blazor pocket a bit startled by her looks. All the while Terrock cants his head, he actualy seems quite fine with her looks, and instead of curiosity, or coldness, he looks at her like she was more normal then when she had the illusion up "You look rather pretty if you ask me Mam. Though admittedly, the most disturbing thing is…the lack of eyes" gently pets the pocket Sparks went in, there is a sense of honesty to his voice. "Just a diamond in the rough is all."

It seems Ember can still blush in her core form, it just comes across as a brightening instead of a red hue. But she doesn't keep the illusion down for long. It starts to rebuild itself from the foundation outward over the course of about fifteen seconds until once again it's solid and detailed enough that even eyes like Terrock's would find it impossible to tell fiction from reality. "Thank you. That's… I don't normally drop my illusions, I only change them when I feel like a change." This time the side-braid of her hair has the appearance of having been dyed in a rainbow array. She reaches over and turns off the nearest computer monitor, then starts for the other lights, "We can turn these off now, just leave the desk lights on."

Terrock goes about turning off variues lights "Sorry bout Sparks, it took awhile for him to get used to me, let alone strangers" talks as he turns off lights except the desk ones "You would have fit in well with my family.We all had nicknames for each other" seem to have really warmed up, not seeming to have any walls up "And kind of lucky too. There are times I wish I could change how I look". Sparks comes back out and perches on his shoulder again, chittering something to him. He begins turning bright red and exclaims to SParks "You must be kidding me, she just a kid!" mutters "Monkeys."

Once most of the lights are turned back off, Ember returns to her vacated chair. "Family is… the reason I'm so good at illusions. And the reason I have so many scars. Well, except for the shoulder, left shin, and some of the cuts on my back. Those were earned honestly." She might not be the Queen of keeping up walls, but she's certainly in line for the throne. While she is relaxed and friendly, she still maintains a degree of separation. She grin and chokes on her breath as Terrock translates for Sparks. "Gah!" After recovering she smirks at Terrock, her gaze switching between him and the monkey. "So you can really talk with him? Or are you just yanking my chain?"

Sparks looks at him and him at Sparks befor be looks to Ember "Well yes. No…err yanking of chains here." wonder where the heck kids get their sayins from "Anyways, I had Sparks since he was small. But it nost just him, I can talk to anything thats alive. You could too" Strokes Sparks head as the monkey point to the heavy and ancient looking talisman worn around the giants neck

Ember glances downward at the amulet with dawning realization. "Ah, okay." She looks at it for a bit longer before shrugging. "Three days ago, I would've called that a complete line of bull. But then I used an Asgardian runestone to heal injuries that should've taken months to heal on their own. So I can go with 'magic jewelry'. Just one more flavor of strange."

Terrock 's turn to be confused as he looks at Ember like she is crazy "Asgard? As in the place of the Norse Gods? Mam, do I look like I was born yesterday?" looks at his amulet considering this a moment befor looking to Ember once more

Ember nods slowly at the question, "Yes, as in that place exactly. Except not quite like the myths paint it. I've met a handful of Asgardians who've come here, either to visit or to live for a time. Some of my injuries were from a fight I was in a few days ago. I fought alongside Loki, who I'm told is counted among a team of heroes called the Avengers, based in New York. Met his brother Thor a while back, also. All I can say about him is that he really enjoys texmex." Her tone and face are serious and straightforward, all the nuances of expression in a real face even though it's nothing but a trick of the light. "And again, not long ago I would've reacted just as you have. That was before I came here, though."

Terrock eye twitches a moment "Girl turning into crystal, talismon that allows you to talk to animals. School full of mutants, This MUST be the norm here" there a hint of sarcasm, but it more of the uncomfortable half beleiveing kind. Suddenly his stomech rumbles quite loudly. He ignotes it "Heh, not sure how things work around here….but I guess it is only fair I show you what my….power? is.

Ember shrugs, "My definition of normal is… under construction these days. I tend to just take things in stride, or at least pretend to, and then save my freak-out for later. When no one else is around." She's about to respond further when the stomach rumbling occurrs. "Heh. If you want to show me, that's your call. If not, then don't worry about it. But if you need to feed the beast, the staff kitchen is just down the hall."

Terrock face reddens a bit at the mention of beast even though he know she wasn't calling him one."Eh…I rather make sure there is meat…err food left for the morning. You kids need them after all" looks around a moment and spies a decently sized desk that appears solidly made. He walks over to it and remove all the little lamps, books etc from atop. Using one hand he lifts it carefully over his head with apprently little effot, his large muscles becomming quite visible even beneath the thick silk blazor. "Errr…Tada?"

Ember cringes as she steps in it with the 'beast' remark. "Sorry. It's just a phrase I've heard around here a few times. Mostly from Doctor Hank, who I'm told sometimes goes by the name 'Beast'. And we've got plenty of meat. Quite a few solid carnivores live here, and you can never have enough food around a few dozen wild teens." She smiles as Terrock picks up the solid oak desk, "Nice. I have a hard time lifting a gallon of milk. Could've used you this morning during my power training."

Terrock sets the desk gently back down "Truth be told, I am not even sure what to do here. But, I am usualy willing to help" picks up the various nit-nacs putting them carefully back on the table "And…no need to be sorry. It, not a nmae I am used to I guess, my parents would call me Orc." grins some"And if you insist….where exactly is this kitcehn?" stomech gives an even louder rumble, loud enough to make Sparks flee and perch on Ember's shoulder

Ember smiles and stands as Terrock is putting the desk back to rights. "Orc it is, then. Although Ember is a name I will still use since it's on all of my legal documents, 'Aura' is the name I've chosen for myself." And then the stomach growl returns and she's got a pigmy marmoset on her shoulder. It's just an automatic reflex that she reaches up to steady him a bit. "Alright, let's get you fed. The kitchen is this way."

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License