xp_logs | Log: Adrienne and Sarah Vale

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Returning home from Madripoor, Adrienne is instructed to pick up the mansion's newest student, Sarah Vale.

There was no justice in the world, even though Adrienne supposed she had been fighting for justice most of the day. But that was the reason why there really was none. Because if there _was_, she wouldn't be here at the airport waiting to pick up a new student when she'd already put in a full bloody day in Madripoor! How could it possibly still be tuesday? It didn't make sense. It just wasn't fair. Whoever had left that message on her phone, noting that since she was already going to be at the airport anyway she might as well bring the new student back with her so as to avoid inconveniencing another teacher who would have to come all the way to the airport and go all the way back was going to face the wrath of Adrienne Frost, make no mistake. She should be sleeping in the back of the car right now, not scrutinizing the flight arrivals board for the umpteenth time waiting for the kid to show up!

Adrienne stalked over to a vacant spot by the doors, holding her sign down at her side. It seemed Driver was in on this little coup. He'd brought a change of clothes for her, and a placard with the student's name. It was rather embarrassing to be seen holding up a placard at an airport like some sort of taxi driver, and no one had come out of the doors from the luggage area since she’d arrived, so Adrienne refused to hoist the sign until she saw movement. It took too much effort.

The psychometrist was snapped from her reverie and fatigue by the opening of the arrivals area doors, and she held up her sign almost reluctantly as people began to pour through and hesitate as they searched for relatives or other points of contact, creating a small logjam of people. Adrienne tried to guess the teen who would approach her. The bleached blonde with the barely-there shorts? The freckled and pale redhead with the tragically misshapen blouse? The dark-featured one with the extremely odd accessories?

Dragging along a bag that was nearly as big as herself, fifteen year old Sarah Vale took a deep breath while surveying her surroundings. Her first time on a plane alone had been a bit nervewrecking especially given her powers but with no major incidents, the short brunette was quite pleased with herself. It hadn't been a long flight at all, in truth, but the butterflies in her stomach continued to flap and flutter; reminding her that she wasn't where she needed to be yet.

Chocolate brown eyes skimmed over the crowd gathered until they landed on a little card held by a tall, raven-haired woman, her own name printed neatly across it. She adjusted the grip on her luggage and with lips drawn tight, walked over to the adult. "Hi. Um, I'm Sarah. You're from the school, right?"

“If I said no and that I just enjoyed hanging out at the airport writing complete strangers’ names on placards for my own personal enjoyment, would you understand that I was joking or think I was serious and run away?” Adrienne enquired, eyebrow raised.

"Um, joking?" Sarah replied, shifting her weight from one flip-flopped foot to the other. She was quite unsure what to make of the woman, even moreso when she started asking her ridiculous questions instead of just answering her own. "I mean, it'd be pretty amazing if you managed to guess my name considering how many people get on planes everyday and come through this airport so, logically speaking, it makes more sense if the school sent you to pick me up since I don't have a car, let alone drive, and my parents didn't come with me."

"What if I was a telepath or someone who could figure out peoples names with some sort of power?" Adrienne inquired. So far, she liked the girl for being well-spoken and able to think logically. "I think Driver's out this way," she gestured, beginning to walk. The sooner they got back to the mansion, the sooner she could sleep.

Dragging the suitcase, Sarah followed behind with a small but triumphant smile on her lips. "If you were a telepath or someone who could do that, then why would you be wasting your time sitting in an airport when there is a whole city to be scammed with something like that? Then, you'd be a stupid telepath. Or a predator in which case, I'd like to see some ID."

Adrienne liked this kid. She had snark. "Sorry, I don't have my math teacher ID card on me," she said with a half smile. "I'm Ms. Frost, by the way. You have some interesting jewelry there, Miss Vale."

"Huh? Oh! It's new. My sister got it for me for my birthday," the younger mutant explained looking down at her watch. An oversized copper cuff was stylized with various types of metallic filigree and decorations - gears and wings and such - sprouting out from under the clock face. "She liked it for me because of my powers. I uh, can talk to machines and stuff and sometimes tell them what to do." Technopath. With steampunk tastes. "So, um, thanks, Ms. Frost."

"That's a very interesting power, Miss Vale," Adrienne praised. She wondered what it would be like to set someone like Sarah loose in Frost Enterprises. The idea of the havoc Emma would have to deal with made her grin. "The car should be just this way, unless Driver's left us here and gone joyriding."

"It's not really," Sarah sighed, keeping right at Adrienne's heels. "At least, not yet. I um, only started being able to do stuff back in January so I'm still learning a lot about it and can't really do much." Yet. That's why she was being sent to Xavier's and away from her home. "If it's not too rude to ask, Ms. Frost, but what can you do?"

"Can I borrow your watch? You'll get it back unscathed, I promise," the psychometrist assured her. Adrienne wasn't usually one for showing off with her powers, but since coming to Xavier's and learning to better control them (or rather, being more equipped to do so thanks to the Professor's psychic circuit breaker and Forge's hand coating substance, though she did owe a lot to Nathan's shielding and meditation lessons, she supposed,) she was becoming more comfortable with her ability.

With a slight frown and moment of hesitation, Sarah stopped and carefully removed the bracelet before handing it over. "Are you going to make it disappear or float?" she asked as the metal touched Adrienne's fingertips.

She watched the watch being made, sold, resold, then zipped ahead on the timeline to see two girls, obviously sisters, twins, one cradling the bracelet like a precious jewel before hugging the other part of herself as they exchanged gifts. They seemed so happy, Adrienne could almost feel their joy, the kind that came with new beginning. Another hug - three, really - later at the airport. After cake, after presents, when joy melted to something like sad anxiousness when the one girl, Sarah, was forced to leave her other half behind with a man in a suit and woman with similar coloring as her daughters. Turbulence on the plane; a look of terror flashing in Sarah’s eyes as she clutched her armrests until her knuckles turned marble white. "No, I'm okay. T-Thanks."

“You’re a twin?” Adrienne asked when she handed the watch back to Sarah, intrigued. “But Jessica didn’t come with you; you left her at the airport. The watch was made in by a woman in Washington DC rather than some Chinese shithole, out of parts salvaged from various clocks and small machinery, most of the origins of which I won’t bore you with, though one of the gears near the face came from a cuckoo clock made in the Swiss Alps. Your sister paid quite a lot for it. She didn’t look at any other watches in the boutique, because she knew the first instant she saw it that it would be perfect for you. Someone had purchased it before her, but they returned it a day later because the recipient, an emo teen with awful taste in music, thought it was garish- though he didn’t use those words. And you’re afraid to fly... because of your powers, maybe?”

"You're psychic," Sarah replied with wide eyes and a stunned expression as she slipped the watch back onto her wrist. "That's so much cooler than my power!" All she could do was talk to her computer. "But yeah, Jessie's my twin but she doesn't have any powers and I was kind of scared to get on the plane because I wasn't sure how I'd interact with it. I almost caused my mom's car to go off the road once and that, in the sky, would be so much worse but that's so cool that you could tell all of that stuff!" the younger mutant repeated.

“It’s a psionic power, but I’m not psychic exactly,” Adrienne corrected easily, making her way through a parkade towards the car. “I don’t read peoples’ minds. I read the history of objects. And I think your power would be quite cool, aside from having that fear that you’ll cause planes to crash. I used to be afraid to touch things, not knowing how I would interact with them, too,” she admitted, “since not everything I read is pleasant. But that’s why you’re coming to the mansion, I assume. To learn more about your powers and in gaining knowledge, gaining more control as well.”

"Oh," Sarah replied, her brow furrowed slightly. "That's still kind of cool. It's kind of like what I do but just a different sort of talking, I guess, to find out a different kind of information," she summarized as she kept on the math teacher's heels. "And yeah, definitely why my parents sent me here. Training and well, they were afraid the kids at school would start making trouble so they figured I'd be safer here. And you know, feel normal again," the smaller mutant added with another shrug. There weren't many like her back home, at least, none that she'd met and the idea of a school full of kids in a similar situation was both comforting and a little bit scary.

Adrienne laughed as Driver opened the car door for Sarah and herself. "Well, the residents at the mansion are anything but normal, as you'll quickly realize," and it's definitely not the safest place what with the shit that seems to happen around there, she thought to herself, but avoided scaring the girl, "but they're friendly, and you'll be a welcome addition to the place. You just might want to stay away from the lab of a guy named Forge," she smiled. "He creates a lot of machines, electronics, or whatever you'd call them." Adrienne wasn't really sure what Forge made in his lab, really.

"Not normal like normal human normal but normal like it's normal to be a mutant at the Institute so it's not like I'll be standing out because of my powers. Or you know, be treated like a freak," she corrected before her expression shifted to one of uncomfortable gratitude directed at the chauffer. "Um, thank you," Sarah managed and slipped into the car, fidgiting with her watch absently as she waited for the man to put her luggage in the trunk.

"I was trying to imply that they were a little crazy, mutants or not," Adrienne amended. "If you can talk to machines, can you make the car drive itself?" Not that she had any intention of getting rid of Driver. It was just a question based on idle curiosity.

"Um, I'd really rather not try. Like I said, I almost made my mom's car go off the road once when I got mad at her and wanted to go home but yeah, in theory," Sarah replied with a shrug. "I do best with the stuff I know and have like, build some kind of relationship with, I guess you could call it." It was the best way the girl knew how to explain why some things worked better for her than others even if they were the same type of machine. "My computer and cellphone. I can work my iPod without using the controls. Just little things like that right now."

"Fascinating. And yes, please don't try to control the car. Driver's quite a dangerous enough driver on his own."

The younger brunette gave a chuckle that was mostly amused but also lined with nervousness. "I'll try not to. Things just happen sometimes but I'll try not to do anything," she promised, go so far as to move her hands to her lap from where they rested on the seat. "So, um, what's the school like? Other than full of kids and teachers with powers and stuff?"

"Uh... it's like..." Adrienne paused, at a loss for words. She wasn't entirely sure how to describe the school. It certainly wasn't like the boarding school she'd been a day student at as a child, and nothing at all like the makeshift schools she'd attended while modeling. Nor was it like the British school she'd been teaching at before returning to New York. She would tell Sarah that it was very homey, but Adrienne wasn't sure if that was the truth, as it certainly wasn't anything like the home she'd grown up in. More like the place she'd wished she'd grown up in; a place where people got involved in each others' lives, for better or worse- the majority of them, anyway- instead of remaining cold and distant like her own family. "Its almost like a family, I suppose. People care about each other there," she said finally. It was the best thing she could think of to say about it, something that she felt was important to say.

Dark curls shifted over her shoulders when Sarah nodded, focusing on her fingers. "That's cool. I mean, I've had Jessie with me my whole life so it's definitely going to be weird without her. Mom and Dad I'm used to not seeing occasionally because they're divorced and sometimes we spend vacations away with just one of them but I guess this is still different, right?" she mused outloud; a question more directed at herself than the teacher. Of course it would be different - it was a real school she would be starting in the fall with other students and not the stay-at-home brand of education she'd been receiving from her mother since manifesting. "Summer Powers Training Camp," the young teen added with a chuckle.

Adrienne raised an eyebrow. "Oh, just wait until you have your first New Mutants Danger Room session. Seems to me like summer camp for the damned."

"Danger Room?" she asked, brow furrowing. "I don't think anyone mentioned anything about anything called a Danger Room." And why would they? It didn't sound safe or sell the school as a place of legitimate learning.

"At least it's not called the Death Room," Adrienne said by way of reassurance. "It's for powers training and team-building. Dangerous things get programmed to happen, you overcome them; people don't get hurt. It's a completely controlled environment." Unless you were in there with someone who had a dangerous power they weren't in control of, of course, but Adrienne didn't mention that part.

Once more Sarah's mouth moved but no sound came for a few long moments. Death Room, Danger Room; definitely not her mother's kitchen table, either way. "Thanks for the warning, I guess?" she finally managed, fiddling with her watch again.

"Don't be worried. I'm sure they'll go easy on you at first. And if you can control machines, you should do fine in the Danger Room," she added cheerfully.

The younger mutant relaxed a little at that - but not much. Control machines, sure, if she didn't make them explode or crash or go haywire first. "Yeah, I guess I didn't think about that part," Sarah said in a soft voice. "I'm still getting used to it. Being a mutant, I mean. Especially when my parents and Jessie aren't."

"You'll get used to it quickly living at Xavier's," Adrienne assured the girl. "Everyone's very welcoming there. And helpful. And cheerful. Sometimes it's frightening how understanding and sweet everyone is."

Sarah gave a little laugh in return. "Understanding and sweet I can handle. You've never met my Nana."