xp_logs | Mel and Nica - Fireflies Unite!

Backdated to May 25. A Spring-drunk Nica runs into Mel during a flight over the grounds and they find they have more in common than being able to glow and fly. They both like to ask questions.

Spring, to be honest, was Nica's favourite time of year. One might have thought it would be summer, with the long sunny days, but there was something about spring sunshine after the long, dark, cold months of winter that stirred her up and made it very difficult for her to spend any time indoors. So if she wasn't somewhere on the grounds with her studies or her X-Men scenarios, she was basking out on the lawn. At least, until she'd had plenty of sunlight and found herself needing to burn some of it off with a few laps in the sky above the mansion.

Or that's what she told herself. Really, she was so full of springtime energy she had to do something, Besides, flying was, to put it simply, awesome.

So it was that while doing the reading for her next day's classes out by the pool, she'd let the book fall and taken to the skies, where she was blissfully zooming to and fro in the early evening, leaving light trails behind her.

Mel was supposed to be getting ready for work, but Nica caught her eye in a wayward glance outside. Always eager to meet another flyer, especially one that seemed to glow just like her, she floated her way out the window. There was enough time until she really had to leave.

She waved when the girl neared her, a grin on her face. “Hiya! I’m Mel!”

"Oh! Hi!" Nica had been obliquely aware of there being another flier around, but this was the first time she'd actually run into her. "I'm Nica. Nice night for a fly, don't you think?"

“Beautiful night. M’glad it’s startin’ to warm up, means a jacket ain’t necessary anymore.” Mel’s bare arms accentuated the point. It was pleasantly balmy.

"Oh, you feel the cold even when you're all glowy?" Nica was surprised. She'd gotten so used to not having actual sensations when she was channelling a wavelength she'd forgotten not everyone could do that. "Sorry, that was kinda rude. I don't actually know how your powers work?"

She shrugged. “No worries, I don’ really know either? I can fly, an’ glow when I do it- ain’t sure how though. Sharon has her theories…” Mel trailed off before directing her attention back to Nica. “You don’ feel the cold? That’s handy.”

"Well, technically I don't have a body when I'm using my powers, so yeah, I don't feel the cold. Or the heat. Or hungry." Nica shrugged a little. "Basically? I absorb and channel light wavelengths. So right now, I'm pretty much a sentient sunbeam." She grinned at the new description of her powers. "Sharon didn't get too much into my powers, but that was because I distracted her by playing laser pointer."

“Oh! Wow, that’s neat. Are you like, solid right now? Or could I-?” Mel mimicked phasing one of her hands through the other, then flushed. “Sorry, that was weird t’ask. S’jus real interestin’.”

"Oh, not at all weird! Or if it is, I'm just as weird as you are, since that's the sort of question I ask." Nica waved away Mel's apology. "I can only fly if I'm channelling light, so yeah, totally not solid right now." She held out her hand for Mel to test.

Cautiously, she outstretched her hand towards Nica’s, and gasped when it did indeed pass through. It felt like a patch of sunlight on a cold day, pleasantly warm. “Well I’ll be..”

For her part, Nica felt a small tingle, not the usual thing she got when someone passed through her. "Huh. Are you okay?"

“Yeah, s’jus’… warm?” Mel withdrew her hand, and gasped again when the aura around it lit up brilliantly. “Woah, never done that before!”

Nica blinked at the brightness. "It's like I charged you up," she noted, tilting her head to the side. "I wonder why that is. Maybe sunlight's a power source for you?"

“Maybe..” Mel sometimes knew embarrassingly little about her own powers, but it was always cool to discover something new about them. She waved her hand around a little bit and watched the light trail. “You don’t normally have this effect then?”

"Not usually, no," Nica replied, 'sitting' in mid air to watch the light contrail. "Most of the time people might feel a little tingle if I accidentally ghost through them, and there was one time I was able to siphon off some of a person's bio-electricity before she exploded - long story - but nothing like this."

Mel grinned. “Neat.” The light faded slowly before returning to its normal rate of luminesce, leaving behind the warm feeling. “I guess if we ever need a flashlight ‘round here, you can ghost through me,” she joked, giggling lightly.

"Between you, me and Ali, we're totally covered if there's a power outage," Nica agreed.