2015-07-13 Trust the Midas Touch
This scene is rated Everybody
Warning: N/A
2015-07-13
Players: Drake, Mariah, Boris
GMed by Drake
Title: Trust the Midas Touch

This has to be the place.

If it isn't, Mariah has walked a long way for nothing; mentally this does not phase her, she has no problems with drifting across the Eastern Seaboard for as long as it takes. When she's set her mind to something she latches onto it like a bulldog on a bone.

Hands on her hips, she looks up at the gate; Americanos this rich will have someone with guns ready, she reasons - climbing is too risky. She'll have to come up with a diversion.

Putting her sunglasses in her right front jeans pocket, she takes off her jacket and swings it over her head. "WOOOOOOOOOOOO!" she shouts loudly, before strutting and dancing back and forth in front of the gate, hip thrusting, turning cartwheels and generally making a nuisence of herself.

The cameras picked up on Mariah's presence instantly. But nothing could prepare the monitors for the display they were about to receive. And when Drake was called in to have a look, it took less than twenty seconds before he started laughing. But alas, this is obviously someone with an agenda! Or.. well, a troll, Drake reasons. Whether or not she takes off running the moment someone shows up will tell. Of course, it could also be a trap.

Soon, a trio of figures are approaching the gate. The one in the center is the youngest, jet black hair styles to allow a few rakish bangs to hang before his right eye, and wears a bemused smile. The other two, middle-aged, look considerably more dour and severe. The central figure, Drake, stops at the gate and links his hands modestly behind his back. With a bend forward and headtilt, he asks, "'Sup?"

"Oh good! I thought I was going to have to start bouncing my backside before anyone noticed." Mariah immediately straightens up, shaking the dust off her jean jacket before slipping it over her shoulders in one fluid motion, giving Drake a crooked, easy grin. "Is this the school for estudiantes especiales?" she asks.

"The School for Gifted Youngsters," nods Drake, answering her question without really answering it. The next question comes with a playful perk of a smile, "You a gifted youngster?"

The gate remains shut for now, but Drake straightens his posture and rests his forearm across a few of the bars. His posture is casual and non-confrontational, but those vibrant emerald eyes are trained on her with a keen interest, surveying everything from her body language to her tone of voice.

Mariah is relaxed, easy-going, even a bit playful, but her eyes keep darting back to the dour-looking individuals behind Drake when she isn't directly addressing him. She presents as laid back but those with a careful and discerning eye will notice that she's ready to move or act at a moment's notice. "Si, chamo," she smoothly answers, never loosing that saleman's smile.

"If your buddies aren't going to give me air conditioning, I'll show you. No tricks, nothing dangerous - at least, not to you."

She reaches slowly into her left pocket, as if she expects to be attacked or accosted at any minute, and produces a small box of finishing nails. "Watch," she commands, as she opens the box and takes out a single nail. Holding it between her fingers, in plain view of Drake and the other guards, the nail slowly turns from silvery galvanized steel into soft buttery gold, from the contact point of her fingers to the head.

"Pure gold," she states. "You have no idea what it took me to get here."

An obsidian eyebrow raises as she dips a hand into her pocket, being the only indication that the teen is belongs to is on high alert. A nail, under normal circumstances, is not intimidating. But Drake's experienced enough to not trust the unknown. He's silent throughout the production, however, and looks to the item in hand…

…and it turns to gold. Or what /looks/ like gold.

His gaze raises to the girl on the other side of the gate. "Pure gold?," he asks. "/Pure/? Not toxic or anything?"

"Pure. Check it for yourself." Mariah tosses it gently to him through the gate. "I'm a very popular girl back home with the cartels."

The nail flicks through the air and carries through the gaps in the gate, only to end in Drake's open palm. He straightens his posture and pokes at it with his opposite hand. "I'll bet," he murmurs.

Suddenly, his arm goes through a gate-gap, offering the nail back. "But we're not thieves here. You can have it back, then.. y'know, step back. The gate swings kind'a wide."

After a beat, he blinks. "Touching me won't turn me to gold, will it?"

Mariah laughs softly and shakes her head no. "Congela suave!" Take it easy. "If touching it was going to turn you to gold you'd be shiny already." She catches it in her hand. "It's okay to keep it you know. It's not like I can't make more." Taking Drake's advice, she turns and jogs back a good distance away from the gate, in case it swings really wide. Super extra wide.

It doesn't swing /that/ wide.

Drake had a feeling she could keep making them. But the important thing was establishing boundaries and set her expectations where they should be - chiefly, that she's not going to be taken advantage of. And once the gate opens, the teen extends an arm to her again simply to gesture her in. "What's your name, chica? I'm Drake. Recent graduate, peer counselor, pool fanatic."

"Nice meeting you Drake. I'm Mariah," she greets in turn; she likes Drake's attitude and it shows. She's cautiously distant for a few lingering, awkward seconds, still watching those other men as if they might throw a net over her. Hence the distance from the gate. "So… this place isn't a prison or a camp? You're not going to just invite me in, then grab me and take me to holding cells underneath all that big Americano living?" Sure, that might come across as rude, but Mariah's MO is to immediately address the elephant in the room, saddle it, dress it in a tutu and ride it through the dinner party.

One of the older males scowls at the question. The other sighs.

Drake, however, openly laughs in full-blown merriment. "Hahah! No way! Look, if they were gonna do that, I'd definitely have been stuck in'em! I'll tell you about how they found me in a while - I dunno what you've been through to get here, but I know my background was… sketchy… before they took me in."

Drake takes a single step back, the human-to-human equivelent of holding a slice of ham out to a wild kitten; luring. "This is a place of new beginnings and opportunities, Mariah. We've gotta be cautious, because…" He pauses to cant his head towards the newcomer meaningfully, "..you get it, right? There are people who'd wanna hurt us just for being us. So we have to be a /little/ on edge."

"What's the saying? Oh: "you are preaching to the choir". I suppose things are different here. You can't even trust police back home." Mariah sighs, losing her smile and staring at the building just beyond the others. It was easy to stuff down everything that happened while she was in the middle of fighting her way to get here. Achieving the goal leaves her momentarily numb with the shock of success.

"Opportunities, huh? Never thought I'd have those. Ever." Her legs finally agree to carry her forward.

As soon as she passes the threshold, the gates start to move shut again. Drake simply waits for the girl to catch up to him, patient, and turns to saunter along the driveway with her at an easy, relaxed pace. "Get used to it. We run things kind'a strict, but it's for everyone's safety. Yours, mine, the students… we're kind've a family like that, and we take care of each other. That means helping find jobs'n stuff."

Drake turns his attention from the path ahead to the girl. "Blunt question time! How old are ya? What was the last grade you completed?"

"Eighteen. Blue shirt." As if 'blue shirt' would mean anything in the United States. Immediately she realizes this and tries to culturally correct herself to give meaning to what she just said. "In Venezuela you wear a uniform, different colors for different grades. Blue shirt is middle school, I finished that but never made it to diversified education. My family was killed before then."

Drake nods along, and adopts a very blank look when she mentions a shirt color. At the clarification, he exhales a gentle, "Ohhh," which gets cut off promptly when she mentions her family's fate. "…Geeze. I'm sorry to hear that." A hand sets to the back of his neck for a sheepish rubbing, his gaze turning down to his feet. This isn't something they need to dwell on right now. "Well… we'll get'cha caught up. Maybe fast-tracked. The faculty will know the full options."

His head lifts again, transitioning the hand from his neck to rake through his bangs. They simply fall back into place. "You might freak. We've got /all kinds/ here," he notes, siding a grin to her. "It's a whole new thing, being surrounded by others like yourself."

Mariah takes it in stride. She's never really talked about it before. Counselling might be in order after everything else is handled - scratch that. Counselling should probably be mandator, but the local telepaths will probably pick up on that soon enough. Her smile returns with Drake's sunny and encouraging disposition and she walks just a little taller. She's no longer compacting her limbs in and making herself seem smaller.

She takes a deep breath and sighs. In with the good air, out with the bad feelings. "I spent the last three years in cages, in basements, in locked rooms and in coca plantations run by Revolucionarias. I will be -happy- for the change."

Out walking in the courtyard in only overalls was Boris. He had caught a few words of the on going conversation. The robust dwarf like mutant approches the gates and peeks through the bars. He immediatly recognizes Drake and gives him a friendly wave, before looking to Mariah. He looks her up and down and offer her a shy wave in greeting as well saying "Hello" to them both. Boris eyes where somewhat knitted togeather and his fur covered fleshy whiskers twitched seeming a bit worried, but things seemed fine.

Oh damn!.gif

Every new bit of information this girl comes out with elicits a consistent reaction: widened eyes, raised eyebrows, and a distinct lack of breath. "/Cages/?," he asks. "Okay. This is gonna be like a never-ending vacation for you. My life was rough before, but you beat me. So if /I/ thought this was too good to be true… well, you ever see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?" The teen's found his stride again and flashes her a wry, even mirthful grin. "You may not've picked up on this before, but lemme just be clear." His voice lowers a touch to a conspiratorial, near reverent level, "We have /pools/. Two of'em."

And that's when they come across what will surely be Mariah's first exposure to the bizarre: a live-action World of Warcraft dwarf. "And this is Boris," says Drake upon looking ahead again.

Unfortunately for poor Boris, Mariah's reaction is anything but egalitarian and forward-thinking. "MADRE DE DIOS!" she cries in complete shock, ducking immediately behind Drake and grabbing onto the back of his shirt, pressing up against him as if he's going to save her from the … chupacabra? Beaver? Monster? Hell if she knows, this is the first time she's ever seen anything close to what Boris looks like. So much for being a toughened survivor!

Boris blinks and looks rather hurt. But he shakes it off, the Girl seems to have a hard life if any part of the conversation was true. None the less he says in /rough spanish/ using his quiet but baritone voice «"It's Okay, I'm a friend"». Though he certainly wasn't about to get any closer then he needed too with the girl getting a bit freaked out. His tail thumps behind himself as he looks to Drake hoping for some kind of cue on what to do.

Drake saw the reaction coming. He saw it coming /so hard/. This is why, when Mariah latches onto the back of his outerwear, the teen remains comically calm by contrast.

"Eeeeyep."

He doesn't speak Spanish, apart from what he picked up on the street. But 'freakout' sounds the same in any language. He's assuming Boris is trying to placate her, which is good! But it's probably going to see some limited success. So Drake twists at the shoulders to try to look back at Mariah. "It's okay. He doesn't bite. He's people, just like us. Just… all hairy. S'no big!"

Mariah peeeers cautiously around Drake. "« I… I'm sorry, I've never seen anything like you, » she replies timidly to Boris.

Realizing she has a death grip on Drake's clothing she immediately releases him. Whoops! "Que embarrada," she mutters to herself.

Gingerly she moves out from behind Drake, eyes wide, and the initial moment of mental BSOD is fading quickly, replaced with what can only be discribed as wonder. "… You're real? I know that probably sounds stupid, you're right there, but … que bacano!" How cool! She begins to grin again.

"Aye. Ah be real all right!" Boris says with a friendly smile. He flicks the iron gate so it make a ringing sound. He no illusion or anything like that. He has yet to approche the girl but aks shyly "Voo might sie be ven?" he asks in his heavy accent. He offers Drake a smile, appreciating being referred to as a person and not a thing or an it.

Drake doesn't evade around Mariah. He lets the poor little bunny peek out on her own, as it were. But once she's free of his shadow and turned his clothes loose, the teen puts on a lopsided grin and hooks his thumbs into his pockets. He doesn't interject - this is a part of getting acclimated, after all. No need to rush it!

The girl struggles a moment to understand the heavily accented English, but she puzzles it out. "Mariah Fox," she says to Boris. "Looks like we're gonna see more of each other, if they don't kick me out or anything." She looks over the unusual mutant 'dwarf'. "You have a tail? I wish I had one, that would have come in handy a few years ago. All I can do is get in trouble," she chuckles.

Boris looks behind himself at his tail "Trist meh ven Ah say tail cause trouble." ge turns slightly red in the face thinking of yesterdays incident. He ahems and looks more to Mariah "Et iz pleasure ta meet sie Mariah. Az said afore, Ah be Boris Breitbarth.". He certainly wasn't in no rush, but now he was curiouse about this girl. He asks "Ah guess sie are mutint az well. Wonder, vat iz powar?" glancing to Drake afterwards. He wasn't sure if such questions were frowned upon or considered rude

Drake gives no indication that they are, nor that they would be. Heck, it's part of integration. But the teen plucks his cellphone from his pocket to check the time on it - there's no more reason for it other than to give a signal that time is a factor. Right now, the girl is an outsider. She needs to be processed and filed for security's sake, and so she can get a phone, and somewhere to sleep. She's bound to be exhausted, given her circumstances.

Drake pockets the phone again and glances from Boris to Mariah. At this point, the other two escorts start to move forward and on into the mansion proper, figuring
Drake can handle taking Mariah where she needs to go.

Mariah's focus is on Boris, so Drake could be giving her bunny ears behind her back and she'd never notice. She perks up when the other men start to move; when they seem to be heading back to the mansion she relaxes visibly. Back to the interesting furry guy with a tail. "I turn iron into gold. The cartels called me 'Golden Goose'."

Boris blinks "Alchemaic!" is his response. Now his own curisty was perked. He reaches into the large leather pouch he often carries with him and pulls out a small iron marble "Mind ef meh kin see?". Though when he finaly realises the 'Golden Goose' part he chuckles "Oh, Goose, like in vose old tales of geese layink goldin eggz!" He glances to Drake not completly sure what he was up to, not knowing the whole precdure or how things work exactly. None the less the marble sized pure iron ball is offer to Mariah. Dwarves are well known for their greed, perhaps Boris follows the same path…or mabey he is just curious? Anyones guess!

Mariah takes the iron marble. "… I'm going to need a snack after this," she muses. "Sorry, it costs me life to make the change. I have to eat a lot and sleep for awhile to get my strength back if it's more than a little handful than this. I think I should be okay with this, though." She takes the iron marble and holds it in her palm in front of the dwarf: Just as with the nail before, its color and texture start to change from skin contact outwards, the black-gray turning soft buttery yellow. She offers it back to him. "It's trouble, this curse. People think I will make them rich."

Boris picks up the golden marbel. He seems somewhat distracted as he says "By Vee Forge." his own golden colored eyes, which match the marble, are alight. He chuckles and says to Mariah "Welt, ah can undarstaund eatink alot. Bout hundret pounds kepts meh happy" he says patting his belly. And then he quite litterly eats the golden marble right there. "Ahhh. Ah love tast of gold. Make fer nice treat". Yup his eyes were alight not from greed, but from having one of his favorits treats!.

"And that," pipes up Drake, "is how you eat a smooth grand." He tilts aside to lightly bump his shoulder to Mariah, perhaps a gesture more familiar than most new acquaintances would share, but that's simply how Drake operates. Personal space? Pshaw. "Ready to get moving? There's a lott'a things the higher-ups need to sort out, and some papers for you to deal with. Legal stuff, y'know? So no one can come over here and try to claim you as their kid, or something."

"Well, if Boris is coming with us, I'll be happy to go," Mariah agrees. She has no issues with the shoulder bump, or at least doesn't show it. She seems to have gotten over Boris' unusual appearance pretty quickly. Hopefully she won't have any future freak outs with other less human-looking mutants.

"Legally I am probably a mess. I didn't exactly come here with a passport," she confesses. "I don't know if anyone would claim me - isn't eighteen the age in this country where I am a woman and not a child?"

Boris scoffs "Wif dis contry hard to say! Sie can't even have a good beer till sie be twenty one! Have two years under me belt of drinkink and suddenly can't. Ah tell sie, vis contry confuses me sumtimes!' he rants! But none the less he nods "Ah kin come, till I git hungry anyways" and with that he too begins heading to the mansion.

"Sure, I guess. But the faculty will be wanting some one-on-one time with you. I'm on the staff here, but I'm not one of the.. uh.. entrance.. review.. people." Drake scrunches up his expression a little, attempting to convey he has no idea what the proper title would be. His face relaxes instantly. "And I'm definitely not a lawyer. But the people you'll be talking to definitely know what they're doing. Don't sweat the passport, or visas. Smart money says they'll take care of all that real quick."

Drake begins walking again, expecting to be followed along. "Just try not to stress or anything. You're gonna be fine and fit right in!" After all, she calmed right down with Boris. He has every faith she'll settle in nicely.

Mariah has come a long way … but her journey is just getting started.

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