Jennie and Rahne -- Thursday Afternoon

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Jennie flees to the outside world, and runs into Rahne. Remember this thread? Yeah, it gets interesting.



The breeze was coming in off the lake that afternoon, and it had a very strange scent. Jennie wrinkled her nose, smelling things like birds and rotting leaves and other various unidentifiable lifeforms in varying degrees of decay.

She literally had no idea how anyone could stand it. She had the vague idea of shoving cottonballs up her nose, but then she'd run around smelling cotton, and that would eventually give her a headache. She rocked the porchswing irritably with a foot, pinching the bridge of her nose. Hiding again, this time outside. Staying in her room meant visitors, who didn't even flinch when they saw her. Maybe that's what bothered her so much. They treated what had happened to her like it was normal.

Rahne had missed lunch that day, due to a long conversation with someone in another time zone, and while she was very relieved that the missing students were back and recovering, she also wasn't above working off the lingering stress on the local wildlife. Rabbits were not technically in season, but on the other hand, none of the hunting laws exactly dealt with when it was okay to bring down prey with your teeth.

She had crept up carefully downwind of the rabbit and pounced, teeth snapping hard together in its neck, before she noticed that she was closer to the house than planned, and in full view (and upwind) of the person sitting on the porch. Oh, heavens. And it was Jennie.

...Offering to share probably wouldn't help. She dropped the rabbit a bit guiltily and shifted halfway back to human. "Ah, hi.

Well, that was. Jennie became intensely aware of the lifeless rabbit, the smell of blood and of Rahne's own signature, which was doing funny things to her senses. More things that weren't normal. She rolled her shoulders uncomfortably. "Hi Rahne," she said. The fangs still gave her a slight lisp. She nodded towards the rabbit. "Lunch?"

"That was the idea." Rahne's voice and pronunciation were altered from her usual, but she had practice at talking around pointy teeth and a somewhat elongated nose and mouth. "I wasna paying enough attention -- I can take it somewhere else if ye like."

"No, it's fine. I was just ...not doing anything anyway. Everything in the house reeks." The smell of blood was making her tense. And hungry. At least she hoped it was the blood. Jennie wrinkled her nose. "How do you stand it? If I'm not jumping out of my skin at every little noise I've got a headache from the smell of everything."

"Well...." Rahne looked down at her rabbit, which smelled of blood and raw meat and digested greens and... well, rabbit. "Two things mainly. I can get away from it, which doesna apply to most people with enhanced senses, and I'm used to it, which probably does."

"Get used to it. Right," Jennie looked down. Kyle had green eyes again, but every time Jennie looked in a mirror she saw little change. She simply wasn't built to handle massive physical changes due to a mutation, so her body was taking longer to release the effects of the spliced DNA. The days drifted by, increasing her paranoia that she would be like this forever. She tucked her hair behind her ears with fingers that still had sharp claws. "Until it goes away. Hopefully."

"Sorry not to be more help," Rahne said. "There are advantages, believe it or not, though I canna think that's much comfort right now." She hesitated. "Er, a moment?" She shifted back all the way to wolf and was as swift and neat as she could manage about devouring most of the rabbit. Then she returned almost to human, reached into a small pocket in the shapeshifting clothing, and crunched a breath mint before coming up onto the porch.

Jennie politely looked away as Rahne devoured the rabbit quickly and neatly. She absently plucked at a lose thread on her t-shirt, winding the grey thread around her index finger, looking back up when she heard Rahne approach. She hadn't forgotten their last "real" conversation. She felt so ashamed the tips of her ears burned. "You're well within your rights to tell me to get over myself," she said quietly. "Just so you know."

"Nobody forced it on me, but I was fairly shocked by being a wolf for the first time," Rahne said, settling on the other end of the swing. She wasn't going to shift all the way back to human until she'd had time to start digesting the stomachful of raw rabbit, and the external signs partly mimicked the differences in Jennie. Wolf eyes, heavier nails, sharp teeth. Although the thin brown fuzz of unreceded fur was different. Technically, her first manifestation had been triggered by the Cerebro-induced planetwide headache, but it was a natural form to her (not that she'd realized that then) and not something specifically intended for her. "And aye, everything was too loud and sharp and strong." A half-smile. "But then, even when I was not a wolf at all this place seemed very loud and busy at first."

"I think it's different, for those who are meant to be the way they are. At least I think it might be, I don't know, I've never--" Jennie broke off with a sigh, spreading her hands on her knees and looking at the sharp things that were her fingernails. No longer retractable, but still, small comfort. "Somebody made me this way, I'm not supposed to be like this. I look in the mirror and I get ...repulsed at what I see there. I want to tear off my own skin." And nobody seems to care but me.

"None of that, now. 'Tis still perfectly good skin." Rahne hesitated for a moment, then reached over to lay one of her hands on the back of Jennie's wrist. "It is different," she said seriously, "and not different, and I know I have it far easier than many because I can let go the changes and go back to looking and sensing the way I did before so I'm nae too sure I've any business talking. I think there are quite a few who are... are repulsed at least for a while by their own mutations, especially the ones with physical changes. But I'm thinking in this case the wanting to tear it out likely is because it was forced on you by someone's malice." The thought crossed her mind that maybe Logan would be a better candidate for the conversation in that respect. ...Maybe not.

Jennie's hand twitched noticeably with the contact, and she forced herself to relax. "I mean, it's stupid to be emo about it, because people have gone through this before and learned to deal with it. Kyle can smell and hear just about damn near everything, and here I'm complaining because I can barely talk with these fricking things in my mouth," she pointed to her teeth, "And Marius, I have no idea how he can stand to be around anyone around here." She flexed her shoulders to try and rid herself of the irritation. "And ...yeah. I want it gone, out of me. I was 'built,' by some psycho. Engineered to be his pet mutant killer, It--" She stared off towards the lake. "I can't really deal with it, because I have never felt so violated in my entire life," she finished.

Rahne let go and sat back, not wanting to make things any more uncomfortable. "No, I'd think not, and I'm well aware I've no idea what that's like myself," she said quietly. "That other people have lived through it hardly makes it all any easier on you.... the specific powers or the engineering by psycho. Though it does mean ye know it can be survived."

"Yeah," Jennie said simply. "But the knowing is one thing, it's the actual feeling that is taking time to process. I just-- I wish it would go away already. I look at the boys and I see how it's going away for them, and I worry. What if I'm stuck? What if I have to walk around with the physical evidence of what he did to me for the rest of my life?" Jennie looked at Rahne, and wondered how the scots girl could sit there so calmly and listen to her rant, and not tell her to shut the hell up.

"The feeling always has to take time, I think," Rahne said slowly. "No matter what kind, or how many people have felt the same way in the world." She pointed at Jennie's claws. "As for going away, I think those were cat-claws earlier? The things that help the boys go back to normal faster are the ones your body's trying to shed, but ye are changing back."

"Yeah, I hadn't thought of it like that," Jennie said ruefully. "Sorry, my brain's been messed with, I'm not thinking clearly." That actually made sense. She sighed and kicked one leg back and forth, making the swing rock a little. "Thank you for listening," she said softly. "It ...helps. You know?"

"I'm glad." Rahne swayed a little with the motion. "...I'm glad you're back."

"Yeah, me too." Jennie tucked a piece of hair behind her ear again. "And for what it's worth, I'm sorry about that thing that I did back in February. It was... a total lack of perspective on my part. But still. I'm sorry. I should have been smart enough not to say those things."

"I should have not yelled at you, and I'm sorry for that." Rahne grimaced. "I think I never did write back that I'd not been listening much to what anyone was saying in the school, during the days."

Jennie hesitated for a moment, raising a hand and clenching it tightly into a fist, before opening it and extending it toward Rahne, stubbornly heedless of the instincts that were slowly beginning to fade. "Truce, then?"

Rahne wrapped her own hand around it. "Aye." Her mouth quirked. "It'd be a bad time to bite me anyway," she added. "I'm still getting shots for rabies."