Yvette and Matt - Artistic Tour (backdated to June 5)

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Taking Yvette up on the promised tour of the boathouse, Matt meets the other RA.



It took Matt a couple tries to find Yvette's room, but he found it and knocked on the door, hoping she was in. She had offered to give him a tour of the boathouse and while he had explored much of the mansion itself and the surrounding grounds on his own, he had very pointedly avoided the boathouse because he had been warned about it being potentially dangerous until it was cleaned up. Now though, it was supposed to be alright and he was interested in checking it out...with someone else, just in case.

"Just a moment!" came Yvette's accented voice through the door. Pausing to grab her hair net and bundling her braid into it for safety's sake, she came to the door to open it. She'd been expecting Matt today and so she was dressed fingers-to-toes in her protective clothing. "Hello, Matt. You are ready for the boathouse tour, yes?"

"Yeah," he agreed, unaware that her skin was potentially dangerous. It just never occurred to him what mutations might be possible beyond a few more basic ones or the ones he had encountered and was more familiar with. "Now a good time?"

"Of course." She smiled, even though he couldn't see it - he'd be able to hear it in her voice. "Just be careful of touching me - I have covered most of my skin, but my face is still bare and I am fairly short."

"Okay," Matt agreed, reaching out carefully to find her shoulder. "That okay?" he didn't want to hurt himself. Or her. "You are really short."

"Five feet," she informed him. "A little taller when I don't have my powers, but not by much." She shifted so he had a secure grip on her shoulder, without the danger of brushing against her neck or ear. "There, that is good. Are you ready?"

"Lead on," he directed, amused. At 5'8" and still growing, Matt had something of a skinny, gangly look to him almost. His father had been well over 6 feet though so Matt was sure he was at least going to get there. Of course, his father had been something of a mountain of a man made of solid muscle and Matt had a long way to go before he was there. "So then....there are times you don't have your powers? Or I mean, you turn them off or what?" it was a little confusing, their dueling accents.

"I cannot control my powers, no," Yvette explained as she led Matt down the hall to the elevators. "But there are machines that can take away powers, or sometimes other mutants. It has been that sort of year, that I know exactly how losing my powers make me react." Her tone was light enough, but there was a very slight edge to it.

Matt didn't miss that edge and even though he was curious about how machines might take his powers away, he didn't pursue it. "Seems a lot of people can't," he remarked, "Or have side effects to them, I guess. Why bother with having this school then if it's not teaching us what we need to know?"

"Because it does teach us what we need to know. It is more than just the powers control. There is the training in protecting ourselves, in helping others with our abilities. There is going to school without worrying about things being more difficult because we are mutants. And there is the powers training, which does sometimes take longer than we hope. After all, Rome was not built in a day." Yvette was enthusiastic as always about the opportunities provided by Xavier's - without them, she would be back in Kosovo, most likely hiding in her mother's apartment and eventually working some menial job where her powers weren't a threat.

Smirking, Matt listened, amused. "They pay you to say all that?" he asked. It didn't mean she was wrong, but well...it was so impassioned and most likely true. "You could be a walking Xavier's spokesman. Ever consider it?"

She laughed and shook her head. "No, that would need me to be speaking in public and that is not really the thing for me. Unless it is on the stage, acting. That is not so scary, since I can be a character and not me."

"So...how is that different? You can be a character speaking for Xavier's," Matt suggested as they walked, not seeing the problem at all. "There's no difference between you speaking to me and you speaking to a lot of me's, if that makes sense."

"Oh, I do not know. I am not so comfortable with drawing the attention to myself." Yvette appreciated the suggestion she'd be good at representing the school, but the idea of public speaking was still daunting.

They'd reached the front door by this stage and warm sunlight washed over them as they stepped outside. Yvette was walking slowly but steadily, aware of the need to not make any sudden movements and quietly pointing out obstacles.

"Have you been out on the grounds much?" she asked as they moved down the steps.

"Yeah," Matt nodded even though he was slightly behind Yvette and she couldn't see him. He tried to nod and remember other gestures and such too, though he rarely did, "Mostly on the paths though, if that makes sense. And I've tried to stay sort of near the main building. I'm used to New York streets, not all this grass!"

"It is nice here, especially in summer. There are some good walking paths through the woods too." She paused, thinking. "Is there something we can do to make things easier for you? To navigate outside, I mean?"

Matt shook his head, "Not that I know of. I just stick to the paths. It's not like the city streets with lots of noise and things to give me cues for location and intersection and all that. Ain't much of a nature person anyways. 'Cept for Central Park, I'm not used to a lot of green."

Yvette resolved to do some research into it anyway, maybe talk to the student assistance people at Empire State - she had to deal with them to compensate for her hands and her inability to handle normal writing utensils and such. Anything to make the school more hospitable for Matt, who seemed to have one foot out of the door most of the time any way. "That makes sense, I suppose, that you are more used to the city. You lived in New York all your life?"

"Yeah. Until here," because this might be Westchester county and all that, but it was as different from New York City to him that he might as well have been in California or something. He was slowly beginning to relax into this place, adjusting to its distinct oddities, though he knew from previous experience, generally when this happened he would be yanked to a new placement for some reason. Usually because he did something or something happened or whatever. Complacency in a place lead to carelessness and that lead to everyone relaxing their guard...and him somewhere else. "Never left the city until I came here," it was perhaps a narrow, small existence in terms of the actual dimensions of Manhattan, but it had been plenty big enough for him. There was no place like New York.

"It must be quite the change for you," Yvette observed as the boathouse came into view. "We are nearly there. The lake is about fifty metres away and there is a small dock to the left. The boathouse is in front of us; it has two levels, with the heavy work at the bottom and the lighter things like painting and drawing upstairs."

That was the truth! "Pretty big," he agreed, trying to downplay it. It was a huge change. "But you know, that's life. Everything always changes just when you get start getting used to it, you know? Meters?" he chuckled, amused. He wasn't used to thinking in metric, but he could handle it. Metric made a lot more sense than standard. "Well...let's start at the bottom then?"

"Okay." Yvette pushed open the door, exposing a sunny room with comfortable seats and a small bookshelf with a stereo and a range of CDs. "Over on the right, we have what we call the 'chill out' area," she said. "It's a place for people to relax and talk over their projects and try to get inspiration, yes?"

"Uh, yeah," Matt sort of bobbed his head. The description meant nothing to him. "Where's the furniture and all that? So I don't go knocking into it?" he let go of Yvette's shoulder, his cane arcing gently in front of him as he went to explore, finding a couch and love seat around a coffee table. Ah. A pretty normal configuration.

"The usual living room arrangements," she explained. "No television, but there is the coffee table you just found a lots of couches."

"Good for creativity," Matt replied, though it was more an assumption. He did not consider himself an artist or very creative person. He did however like TV. He also liked socializing so this made sense. "And upstairs then?"

"It's good to be able to take the break when something is not going so well," Yvette agreed. "The stairs are just over here; let me show you. It's where the more traditional art is done - sketching, drawing, some wood carving. And over to the other side down here is where Kevin has his area, with the heavy equipment for the welding and such."

"Alrighty," Matt let Yvette lead him over to the stairs, then headed up, his cane tapping each one as he counted them. 'Normal' flights of stairs did not always have the same number of steps. There was no such thing as normal. "Wood carving?" that sounded interesting. A lot more so than drawing or painting, both mediums that he couldn't enjoy so much. "There anything that Kevin's working on that I can see?" meaning 'touch.'

"Kevin and I both use our powers for wood carving," Yvette explained. "And Angel is trying to do something similar with hers, although she has trouble not setting the whole thing on fire." She led the way to one of the rooms that had a small woodshop set up in it. The carving tools were all safely stored on the walls above the three benches, and each bench had two vices, one at each end, for people to secure their pieces. "You are lucky, it looks like Kevin has a piece he is working on at the moment. You know his powers, yes? To make the organic things decay? Well, with the wood sculpture, he uses his hands to decay away the wood and make shapes." She drew Matt over to one of the benches, where a half-finished block sat in the vice. "Here," she directed, placing his hand on the top of the piece

Feeling it, Matt wasn't sure what it was, but Yvette had said that it was unfinished, so it was possible he might find out later. Or it could be something abstract, which he would never understand then. Matt did not understand abstract art at all. It was just weird. He had to admit though, it was pretty cool regardless, feeling the soft planes and angles as places were shaped, "Cool," he commented, removing his hands from it. "That's a really different use for powers. I never thought of something like that."

"There is always a use for powers we had not thought of - it is part of why the school is so important." She moved over to another bench and brought something back. "Here is one of mine. I carve with my fingers, instead of a knife." It was a delicately made piece, a swan slowly unfolding its wings in flight.

"Wow," Matt felt the entire thing and he had to say he was impressed. "That's really cool. Flying bird." Okay, so he didn't get that it was a swan, but that was more because he was a 16 year old boy than anything. "I don't think there's a whole lot that's cool about my powers. I mean, I just hear stuff mostly. Or get itchy."

"You'll find something," Yvette said with a confident smile. There was always something. "Let's go to where the pottery is set up, shall we? I think that might be something you could enjoy."