District X Fair: Here come the fun times!!!

[x-dust.livejournal.com]

A small group from Xavier's arrives at the fair in District X and has a good time...

Shaking her head, she watched with a smile as Megan made a beeline for a colorful craft stand. The others whom she had driven had already disappeared in the crowd. Sooraya glanced around... there were at least enough people who wanted to support in some small way. Or just to get some sales...

Catching the other girl staying with her, she smiled: "See anything that has caught your eye?"

Tabitha eyed her babysitter, weighing the pros and cons of making an escape. She decided against seeking out the father that had left her to take the fall for a botched bank robbery. She looked around the market. "Not yet, but we're just getting started, right?"

Grinning, Sooraya shook her head. "Of course. We have all of the afternoon to look around." She surveyed the various booth and slowly started making her way to one with a variety of colorful scarves where Megan was standing as well. From the corner of her eye she kept an eye on the teen. She knew she probably could manage well in the streets to some degree, but after having seen...

"I love to gather ideas," Megan said as she examined the scarves, wondering if she could duplicate the fabric painting technique. She engaged briefly with the seller, who didn't seem to mind answering her questions. "Now that I'm in college, I'm pretty much broke anyway," she said as they moved on. "Are either of you into making art or crafts?"

Tabitha wondered if lock-picking could be considered a craft. She knew some people considered it an art. She just thought it was fun. "Not really," she decided. "Maybe I should take something up?"

"I think cooking comes the closest to an art or a craft for me." Sooraya mentioned as she felt some of the scarfs. She narrowed her eyes a little when she spotted two scarfs. Both had the same abstract pattern, but the colors were inversed on the other one. "These are nice and I think they would look interesting together..." She mused out loud for a moment.

"You should take a look at the boat house." She recommended to Tabitha after she had handed over the scarfs to the merchant to wrap up. "It has all kinds of art supplies you can try out."

Tabitha considered before she answered. "That could be fun," she allowed. She craned her head around, now more eager to get ideas. She really did love making a mess.

"Oh, that is nice, that is," Megan said of the scarves that Sooraya was examining. "The shapes and colors remind me of some extra beads that I have. If you have pierced ears, I could make you some earrings,
or maybe a bracelet." She added to Tabitha, "My room - no, my life - has been taken over by art supplies. Besides the stuff in the boat house, I don't mind sharing from my own hoard."

Megan was wearing some examples of her art - a draping, oversized tee that she'd screen printed with overlapping textures and cartoony images (it covered her wings nicely), and hand-painted shoes.

"Why don't I stop by later? It might be fun to have matching earrings with these..." Sooraya tucked the small package away in her tote with a smile and a nod to the merchant, then turned around to scan the other stalls. "See anything you would like to check out, Tabitha?"

Mostly, Tabs saw pockets she wanted to pick, but she was pretty sure her companions would frown on that impulse. "Wouldn't mind a necklace or something. Maybe an anklet?" She poked at a nearby display. She just really didn't want to spend money. She wanted to make it.

"There are more stands if you want to go and look... You want to go?" Sooraya asked. Suddenly she someone bumped into her and she turned around to look. Before she could complete her turn though, she heard shouting.

Megan spun to face the direction of the cries. It sounded like a kid. It was hard to see above the crowd in the market. "What was that? Where are the other kids?" She immediately started working her way towards the commotion, Sooraya and Tabitha behind her.

***

Quentin had pretty much abandoned the group as soon as the van shifted to park. He'd agreed to come on this outing only to support Manhattan's crumbling mutant community, and that didn't mean that he had to even acknowledge the existence of anyone else who lived at Xavier's School for Self-Righteous Douchebags. He convinced himself in was just coincidence that he and Topaz found themselves at the same stall selling homemade jewelry. The artisan fancied himself a "metallokinetic," able to fashion metal by hand with ease. A rack of earrings had caught Quentin's eye, and the telepath really hoped that he accepted credit.

It was a coincidence as far as Topaz was concerned. She'd been at the booth next door, which had boasted a bunch of old books - nothing interesting though so she moved on, stopping, at the jewelry booth mostly as a courtesy to examine the jewelry. As for the pink-haired bloke in front of her? She gave no acknowledgement that she knew him. Not out of derision or anything of the like - it never even occurred to her to notice Quentin. He clearly didn't want to be associated with anyone from the school. And Topaz just really didn't care.

So she examined the jewelry, gave the booth owner a polite smile, and moved on.

Xavin had been trailing along behind Topaz, not particularly wanting to hang out with her so much as not wanting to wander around alone. Xavin picked up a pair of delicate, dangly earrings and, with a sigh, put them back down a moment later. "They're gorgeous" the teen told the stall holder.

Quentin glanced at the kid and raised an eyebrow. He'd been successful in his endeavors to not getting to know his peers (if anyone could even be called a peer of Quentin Quire) so he was surprised to find a guy so into pretty shiny things, too. It almost made him think that maybe should start to consider not hermitting it up all the time. If he could support gender nonconformity, especially among people without the privilege of a parents-funded line of credit, then he had a responsibility to do so.

So he selected a double helix–shaped cartilage-chain earring and a couple of simpler studs for himself, and the dangly ones that Xavin had their eyes on, and handed his credit card to the merchant. A swipe on their iPad later, and the transaction was complete. "Not really my style," he said to Xavin, shrugging as he held out the package that held their earrings, "But it's good workmanship and it supports a mutant artist, so good choice."

Xavin blinked. They were expensive earrings by the standards the teen had learned applied these days, where suddenly spending $10 on cake and a mocha frappuchino was a big deal. "Wow. Thank you. I mean, I can't wear them now, of course, but that's really nice of you." Almost suspiciously nice, because this was Quentin who had, up until now, mostly stalked around being snarky and cranky.

"Why the hell not? Oh, your ears aren't pierced?" Quentin waved that off as he looked around for something sharp. "Hold still, I can probably do it myself right here . . ."

"Or you could wait and go to the mall after," Topaz spoke up from the next booth. Years of practices had left her able to quell the momentary "Are you freaking kidding?" thought when Quentin had declared he would pierce Xavin's ears. "Or, you know, wait, until we get back to the mansion so you can give Xavin a sock to bite down on."

Xavin had been staring at the two of them with a look of increasing horror. "My ears are already pierced, okay? You're not going all Doctor Frankenstein on me."

Quentin waved off their concern. "You're worrying about nothing . . . what was your name again? Xanadu? I've got all these." He pointed at the two piercing in his left ear and the third in his right. "It's not like it's difficult."

"Xavin. Not Xanadu. And oh my god. Hold on." Xavin tugged the package open and put the earrings in, cringing slightly in embarrassment because yo, boys did not do dangly earrings. "Happy?"

The man at the booth Topaz was standing in front of was attempting to convince her of the authenticity of the "magical" items he was selling, but Topaz was much more interested in Xavin's and Quentin's conversation at this point. "They look good," she said honestly. She wasn't necessarily <i>trying</i> to feel Xavin's embarrassment, but it was hard to miss.

"She's right, Xanthippe," Quentin agreed, nodding. "Work it."

"We'll see," Xavin replied. "I look like a girl with these in."
 
"There are worse things. You could be a flatscan," Quentin advised sagely. The color and mirth quickly drained from his face, though, when he spotted a flash of blue out the corner of his eye. Police officers. Police in a minority neighborhood was never the harbinger of good tidings. And though he was still mostly headblind, he couldn't miss the rising sense of panic on the streets. He glanced at Xavin and Topaz, and then without waiting, made his way straight to the commotion.