xp_logs | Angelo and Topaz: Monday Afternoon (Reply)

Topaz meets Joyita and Angelo. And learns a little bit more about the school's interesting history.

The first warning Topaz got that she was about to be assaulted with sheer joyous affection was the sound of claws on the wooden floor, before a large dark brown dog appeared around the corner and rushed her, tail wagging frantically.

Topaz jumped, whirling around just in time to find herself being pawed and nudged at by the hyperactive animal. "Uh...good dog?" She said, taking a step back (the dog followed), holding her hands up in surrender. Animals weren't her thing. The closest she'd ever come to a pet was the stray cat she'd secretly fed for months in her old neighborhood.

The dog was intent on licking all the bare skin she could reach, paws propped for moments at a time on Topaz's legs, when Angelo hurried from the direction she'd come from, and took in Topaz's alarmed look in a moment.

"Sorry, sorry, she slipped her leash again. She won't hurt you."

"S'okay." Topaz dropped her hands back to her side, still watching the dog hesitantly. "She's...big." Very, very big. Not that Topaz wasn't used to everything and everyone being bigger than her...

"She is", he agreed. "Not that she knows it, I think in her mind she's still a puppy. Except sometimes she knocks people over. Heel, Joyita. Heel."

The dog obeyed, reluctantly.

Joyita. That was some name. Topaz raised a hand reluctantly, pausing before she'd even moved it. "Can I...?" Dogs liked to be petted, right?

"Sure", he said with a cheerful grin. "She'll love you forever if you do. Or if you don't. She just loves pretty much everybody. I'm Angelo, by the way. Espinosa."

Topaz carefully reached out, lighting scratching behind Joyita's ears. The dog nudged her hand, clearly wanting more. "I'm Topaz," she introduced herself quietly. "Nice to meet you."

"You too." He smiled. "You're one of the newest students, right?"

"The newest, I think," Topaz confirmed with a nod. "Been here three months."

"And how'd you find it so far? Long way from home, by your accent."

Home. Right. She still missed England sometimes. "S'all right." She focused on Joyita rather than looking at Angelo as she spoke. "A little mad sometimes, but it could be worse, right?"

"Could be a whole lot worse", he agreed easily, seeming to see nothing odd in her intent focus on the labrador. "And if you think it's mad now, should've been here when I was in school. Demons and accidental love spells and all sorts."

"Heard about the love spell." Topaz snorted a bit, remembering the story Amanda had told her. "Demons, though, that's a new one."

"We had an actual queen of a hell dimension here for awhile", he noted wryly. "Russian 15-year-old called Illyana. Long story, and she's in... actually, I'm not sure where she is now. Studying somewhere."

Now Topaz did look up, raising an eyebrow. "Seriously? And here I thought randomly appearing potatoes was impressive."

"Yup. She was here as a little kid, I think seven or so, we lost her in one of the invasions and then suddenly hours later she's back only she's a teenager and somehow in the years she spent there, she took the place over. She never would talk about it."

"Don't think I blame her there," Topaz murmured, looking back at Joyita. Years in a hell dimension? She wouldn't talk about it later. "Hang on, one of the invasions?" Apparently Xavier's had a more exciting history than she'd originally thought.

"Yeah, there were... two or three. Sometimes it was about 'Yana, I can't remember what the first time was about. Might've been something to do with Amanda, might've been somebody's revenge, it could even have been totally random."

"Ha." Topaz gave a short, humorless laugh. "You know it's bad when you can't even remember why the invasions happened." She probably shouldn't have been amused by this. She didn't think she could be blamed, though.

"And that was just the demons. There were a couple more with just people... but anyway, our security is a whole lot better these days."

"Oh good," Topaz replied dryly. "Sounds like we're the lucky group." Ironically enough, she added silently, her mind turning to the Slendermen.

"So far, at least some of you, seems like... though I hear you all haven't totally stayed out of trouble either."

Topaz decided to assume he was talking about the Slendermen. "Yeah, well...s'pose you can't really say you've lived if you haven't been dragged into an alternate dimension at least once, right?"

He snorted. "There is that. For a lot of us, it was Asgard. Yes, that Asgard."

"Asgard - Asgard?" Topaz didn't know much about other dimensions. But she'd heard of that one.

"Asgard", he confirmed solemnly. "Elves, magic, dragons, Norse gods, Asgard. The elves taught me to sword fight and there's a girl on the West Coast that as far as I know still has a pet dragon called Lockheed."

"...Dragon?" Topaz made a mental note to go to the West Coast as soon as she was old enough to get out. "Amanda's been holding out on me," she mumbled, talking more to Joyita than to Angelo.

"A pretty small one, but a real live flying dragon." He couldn't hold back a grin. "She probably thought you'd hear it sooner or later. We used to tell people about the demons as a hazing thing, see the reactions."

"Obviously I need to find more people who were here when this happened." If anyone was willing to talk about it. Angelo didn't seem to mind too much though, so it couldn't have been that bad...

"People who were around then and still are..." He considered. "A lot of them are over with Snow Valley now, in fact I think all of the younger set over there except Cammie were in Asgard."

Amanda's mates, then. She didn't know much about them, besides the fact that they'd saved her life twice. Topaz absentmindedly gave Joyita's ears one last scratch before straightening up, locking her hands behind her back. "Hmn. Sorry, didn't mean to pry so much."

"Hey, it's not prying when I volunteer the information", Angelo said casually. "And I like to talk to people, anyone'll tell you that."

Topaz didn't have much of an answer for that. Thankfully, Joyita chose that moment to look for attention again, effectively distracting her.

"Not much of a talker yourself?" It was only half a question, as he crouched to pet Joyita on the other side. "That's okay."

"Guess not." She'd learned a long time ago that sometimes silence was just safer.

"One of the great things about this place", he continued. "There's always a place to go if you want to hide for a while."

"That I've learned." The library had basically become her sanctuary. She'd actually fallen asleep in there a few times.

"I had a clearing in the woods. But for all I know, it's somebody else's secret quiet place by now."

"The woods are nice." She wondered if it was the same clearing Logan had showed her before. "Bit too cold to spend too much time outside now, though."

"True." He shook his head." I came out from Southern California, took me years to get used to New York weather."

"It's too extreme here. Almost just want to stay inside until spring or somethin'."

"Isn't it cold and wet in England too? Not that I've been there much."

"I didn't go outside much there either," Topaz replied dryly. One thing she'd brought with her from India was her love for warmth.

"Ah, fair enough." He grinned. "I'd say you might like it better in the Florida base, but they have storms there like you've never seen."

"S'pose there's something wrong no matter where you go," she murmured absently, still petting Joyita.

"So Cal has perfect weather", he said wistfully. "...but not so much perfect everything else."

Sounded like there was a story there. But Topaz wasn't one to push. "All I need is good weather. Anything else I can deal with later."