xp_logs | Wednesday afternoon | Nathan, Yvette and Sooraya (Reply)

Introducing Elpis' Littlest Volunteer! Nathan welcomes Yvette to the offices and sets her up with a computer. Sooraya is very excited to have a friend there. Set before Nathan takes Angelo the airport.

Sooraya was compulsively cleaning. She couldn't help it; she was too excited. Any moment now Yvette was due down at the boathouse to learn more about Elpis so she too could begin to volunteer with the organization. Sooraya was thrilled - she couldn't wait for her suitemate to get there so they could both volunteer together. It would make the already-rewarding work that much better. Straightening a pile of papers on one of the desks, she had to work to keep from glancing at the door expectantly.

She was vibrating, Nathan noticed out of the corner of his eye. It was very cute. He was trying very hard not to smile, and Juliette, at her desk, wasn't even making the effort. The benign beaming was kind of alarming, actually; Juliette was usually more subtle about the fact that she doted on Sooraya. "Sooraya," Nathan called, smiling, "why don't you sit down and do some reading? I don't think there's a speck of dust left in this office."

Looking up, Sooraya blushed a little, realizing that she had been a little overzealous in her efforts to occupy herself. "Oh... yes, I will read." Picking up the news article she had been working on, the Afghan girl took a seat, making a valiant effort to concentrate on the words on the page in front of her. Barely a paragraph later she set it down, turning her gaze to Nathan again. "Maybe she is lost. I will go find her?" she suggested.

As exhausted as he was, Nathan utterly lost the battle not to smile. "Calmly, Sooraya," he said in a mildly reproving tone that was probably utterly undermined by the twinkle in his eyes. "She's-" He paused, his eyes straying towards the door. "Right here, actually. Go let her in, it's cold out there..."

Of all the days to have a class go late and then to have problems with opening the door to the suite...Yvette had practically scampered down the stairs and outside to the boathouse path, aware that possibly the whole mixture of excitement and nervousness was combining to make doorknobs particularly tricky today. Snow flew up in small clumps beneath her hands as she went for the less-dignified but faster all-fours route. Upon reaching the door of Elpis' offices, she
straightened, brushing herself down and checking to see her gloves were still in place. It wouldn't do to be all messy for a job interview, after all.

Satisfied all was in place, she took a breath to ease the slight panting, and lifted a hand to knock on the door.

It opened before she could make a sound, revealing her grinning suitemate who lifted a hand in an excited wave. "Yvette, you are here!" Sooraya exclaimed. Calmly, calmly... Taking a deep breath she stepped back from the door, gesturing for the other girl to come inside. "Nathan is right. It is very cold outside. But it is warm here, come in, please."

"Thank you," Yvette replied solemnly, although there was a certain increase in the glow of her eyes that indicated she was as amused by Sooraya's enthusiasm as Nathan was. "I am sorry to be late. The classes, they are going too long. And then the door is being difficult." She gave Sooraya a wry grin - the other girl knew well Yvette's Problem With Doorknobs.

"It is okay. But I am happy you are here now." Shutting the door against the cold gusts of wind, Sooraya turned and led Yvette into the office area. As they passed Juliette's desk she hesitated, unsure if she should introduce the woman herself or wait for Nathan to do it.

Juliette smiled and did it herself. "Hello, Yvette. I'm Juliette - I work here in the office as well. You and I will probably be seeing quite a bit of each other."

Nathan gave Juliette an amused look and pushed himself up out of his chair, trying not to look like it was as much of an effort as it was. Or groan. "Juliette keeps the office functioning. If you need anything, just ask her. She likes to think she knows everything."

"I am being pleased to meet you," Yvette said shyly, resisting the urge to hide behind Sooraya. Or one of the desks. Juliette was one of Nathan's people and wasn't someone to be shy of. "I am hoping I can be helping you." She glanced at Nathan. "Mr. Dayspring is saying he is
thinking I can be doing much?"

"Mr Dayspring tells me you're a hard worker with a personal interest in some of the things we do," Juliette said with another smile. "I think that's about the best set of qualifications for being helpful that I can imagine." The phone rang and Juliette smiled again at the two girls. "Pardon me," she said and picked it up.

As Juliette embarked on a quiet conversation with what sounded like one of her contacts at UNICEF, Nathan moved around the desk and across the room to the larger 'conference' table. "Why don't you both come over here and sit down?" he asked. "Yvette, let me introduce you to one of our Elpis laptops. Rather intimidating-looking, isn't it?"

Climbing onto a chair - as was her habit, Yvette tended to crouch on them rather than sit, given it felt more comfortable that way - she blinked at the heavy-looking piece of equipment. It looked like it could be driven over and suffer nothing more than tire prints on the cover, and she wondered if it could withstand even her skin.

"It is being very strong for the computer, isn't it?" she offered hesitantly.

"Yes, very strong," Sooraya replied, taking a seat across the table. "It is for fielding work... because it is not always safe. They do not want a computer to be broke if there is something bad that happens."

"We've set this one up for you," Nathan said, "since I think it's probably easier for you to manage than a bunch of printed-out files." He sank down into the chair beside Yvette with a sigh he couldn't quite stifle, but offered her a reassuring smile. "I had Juliette put together an introduction for you, to all of the different issues we look at. Sooraya, that's more or less the same thing you read, just on the screen instead of the page."

Yvette blinked again. "For me?" she asked, disbelieving as she reached out to touch the solid case. She had been wondering about the reading - papers were awkward to handle with her hands the way they were. On impulse, she patted his forearm, a gesture she saved for those close to her, that she trusted not to flinch away. "Thank you so very much, Mr. Dayspring. I will be reading very hard to be understanding all, yes."

Nathan's smile lit even his tired eyes. "You can take that back and forth with you to your room, just like Sooraya does with the files, if you want to continue reading when you're not actually here. Just ask Juliette if you want more, and she can get you into the database." He should have thought to suggest one of these laptops for Yvette ages before she'd ever expressed interest in Elpis. It wouldn't quite stand up to her skin, but if using it let her worry a little less... "There are actually some documents in there in Albanian. I picked some things from your own country that I thought you might help us read."

That made her eyes flare even brighter, if possible. "Albanian? There are being the Elpis work there too?" she asked curiously. Her fingers were already itching to get started. "My English is being not so good, but I can be translating to the Serbian, for you to understand if the words are being too difficult."

"I'd like you to stick to the Serbian only if it's really difficult," Nathan said, his eyes shifting to Juliette for a moment. "Juliette and I would be happy to help with your English any time you'd like, if something comes up in the course of your reading that you're not as clear on as you'd like to be. You should look at this as an extra opportunity to practice, and there's no better way to do it." He smiled across at Sooraya. "I remember that you had some difficulty
with some of those newspaper articles I gave you."

"Yes," she replied, nodding and tugging at the ends of her sleeves with her fingertips. "They are made in a kind of writing that is not easy to read, always. But practice is good. It helps. And a dictionary."

Yvette giggled a little. "The dictionary, he is being my best friend, yes?" she joked. "And I am being knowing you are wanting me to make my English better with the practice. It is for the very hard words I am using the Serbian." She gave Nathan an eager look. "When am I to be starting, please?"

"Right now," Nathan said, hauling himself up and smiling down at both of them. "Sooraya's here to help, and to answer questions, and I'll be right over there at my desk until I have to go take Angelo to the airport. Juliette, too, once she's off the phone."

With a look that could only be described as barely-bridled excitement Sooraya jumped up, hurrying to retrieve her papers and then making her way back to sit next to Yvette at the table. "We will read together," she told her friend happily, settling comfortably in the chair.

"Yes, we will." Yvette flipped the laptop open, pleased to see the keyboard had nice big keys for her to press, and turned it on. As she was waiting for it to boot, she looked curiously at Sooraya's sheath of papers. "What are you being reading about?"

"It is about mutant rights vio.. viol-ations of the Middle East," she replied carefully, shuffling the papers to show Yvette the first page of the article. "It is sad but important also. You should not let the papers make you too sad, but it is hard. If you are sad, you can ask Nathan and he will tell you a good thing about the world to make you happy again." She glanced over her shoulder at the man who had just seated himself at his desk. "This is true, yes?" she asked him with a smile.

"Well, I do try," Nathan said, his mouth twitching. "It depends on how much coffee I've have that day."

Another giggle, and Yvette settled herself a bit more comfortably on the chair, reading the article Sooraya was holding. She frowned a little. "They are being selling the people?" she asked softly.

Sooraya gave a solemn nod. "Yes. But if you will read more, you will read of things that people will do to stop it. It is good, I think. I wish it will stop soon," she continued, her tone growing more intense."It is a bad thing to happen."

"Yes, it is." Yvette was still frowning, but more out of confusion than upset. Why was this so familiar to her? She glanced at Sooraya, noticing the intensity. "You are being... this is being important to you?"

For a moment the girl hesitated, her eyes dropping to the table. Because she had been made to feel so welcome at the mansion after her abrupt arrival she sometimes forgot that not everybody knew of her prior circumstances. "Yes, it is," she said, her voice dropping. "Because it has... it happened to me."

"To you? But how... how are you getting away, to be coming here?" Yvette asked the question hesitantly, not wanting to be rude, but concerned for her friend too. She glanced over at Nathan uncertainly.

Nathan looked up from his desk, meeting Yvette's eyes for a moment before he looked at Sooraya. "I saw Sooraya in the market when I was in Afghanistan researching the slave trade in young mutants," he said simply. "I saw her change shape, and I couldn't leave her there. So I paid the man who claimed to own her to relinquish that claim, and I brought her back here."

"But not all are lucky as me," Sooraya said, more steadily this time. "And it is a problem that is too big to fix like that. So we must find a different way to fix it. A way the government will help with, maybe. So that all people are protected and do not have to be slaves."

"I am being glad, that Mr. Dayspring is being there to be helping you." Yvette reached out again, this time to touch her friend's shoulder. "And it is being important work, to be stopping this. I am glad to be helping" She turned to the laptop with a certain determination that could almost be amusing, coming from the child-like Albanian girl. But Sooraya's story had resonated deeply, and she had any number of questions, only no-one here could answer them. "There is
being much to be doing, yes?"

She'd track down Marius later.

"We're not going to run out of work to do anytime soon, no," Nathan reassured her gently. "Plenty to do."

"Speaking of witches..." Sooraya still didn't get that saying. "I have read this article all through. Please may I have another?"