xp_logs | Amanda and Anika, late Tuesday night

Backdated to Tuesday night. Anika and Amanda run into each other in the hall, and proceed to bond, as Nate's strays tend to do.

Anika wandered down the hall, her nose twitching as she sorted through the various scents that seemed to be coming from everywhere. Oh, yes, these kids were very interesting. It was too bad she was only going to be here for a little while. Trying to sort out who was doing what and who was doing who would have been so very entertaining. She had already shared some of what she'd figured out with Mick, who had actually laughed. Anika grinned happily, her walk taking on a bit of a bounce as she thought about how much better he was doing, and how good it was just to see him again.

Manuel was asleep and Amanda was still wired. Not a good combination. Restless and still in far too good a mood, Amanda was heading vaguely in the direction of her room, wondering if Marie-Ange was still awake and if she wouldn't mind some company, when she spotted the newcomer coming towards her.

Anika perked up at a familiar scent. "You!" she said with some delight, peering down at the girl. Piercings, dyed hair, a scent she'd picked up on Nate... "You're Amanda, aren't you?"

Blinking, Amanda nodded, then remembered something Nate had mentioned about one of his friends coming to help Kyle and Foley. "Um, yeah. I'm sorry, I don't know yer name..." She couldn't help giving the woman her best flirting smile, however - she was stunning. Not to mention Amanda liked cats, and this woman had 'cat' written all over her aura.

"Anika. Ani," she said with a laugh, sniffing again. "You smell like him. Not that I'm too terribly surprised. He talks about you all the time. Nate, I mean." Anika's eyes narrowed suddenly, almost critically. "You were hurt. I can smell it. Your hurt, and someone else's hurt..."

Amanda nodded. "Halloween. I dunno if Nate told you 'bout the demon, but it had a go at me. An' me boyfriend. He's worse off - I've just been down the medlab givin' him some good news." She bounced a little on her toes. "But all that's sorted. For good now."

Anika's eyes narrowed a little further, but a smile was playing on her lips and her nose twitched again. "Raspberries," she said, ignoring the way Amanda blinked at her. "Something you did that was hard, but it worked out really well. That's why the tart edge. Because it was hard."

With a giggle, Amanda nodded again. "You got that right. How'd you know? An' raspberries are my favourite."

Anika tapped her nose. "Feral senses are fun," she quipped. "Different smells for different emotions. Anything fruity is almost always at least mostly good. Not much in the way of fruit around here, though..."

"Yeah, 's been a tough few months." Cynicism stopped Amanda from saying something along the lines of 'but it's getting better now', even if it was for her personally. "So yer here t' help Kyle an' Foley? Nate mentioned somethin' about you bein' in the same boat as them." This was Amanda being tactful. She wasn't sure how other survivors of Mistra's program would react to being asked specifically about it, but she was curious.

Anika gave a startlingly high-pitched laugh, blinking a bit rapidly. "Direct. No wonder he likes you. Well, yes. Same boat. He got me out by staging my death a couple of years ago." Ordinarily she wouldn't have been this forthcoming, but Nathan had told her about Columbia and Amanda being involved in that and the mess in August, too. "My guardian angel," she said with a bright smile. "Even if he's looking a little battered around the edges and tarnished around the halo these days. I can not get over the damned snow-scent. He's supposed to smell like banana bread."

"Snow?" Amanda gave her a curious look. This was a whole new side of enhanced senses she hadn't come across before. She wondered if Rahne experienced the world the same way when she was in her transitional shape. "But yeah, he's like that - big one for rescuin' people." She grinned a little. "He helped me today, with that hard thing. Couldn't have done it without him."

"Snow," Anika affirmed a bit vaguely, her eyes flickering around the hall. "Precisely how many people are having sex right now, I wonder," she murmured. "Violets. Lots and lots of violets. Maybe it's just a couple of people having particularly energetic sex." She focused on Amanda again, that smile coming back as if someone had switched on the light. "Yes! Kyle. Cute little thing. Just needed someone with the same mutation to talk to. Mick... well, Mick needs a lot and I'll go back down and sleep on him in a little bit. Just felt like I needed a bit of a wander. Cats are nocturnal, you know."

"Well, it ain't me havin' sex, that's for sure. Not with Manny banged up an' Beth back at home tryin' t' figure out if demons are too scary t' live with..." Amanda frowned a little for a moment, then pushed that particular dark spot away. Beth would come 'round. Amanda had faith she would. "How's he doin'? F... Mick, I mean? I saw Nate, after they put the conditionin' back in his head, an' then again after it got taken out again. 'S a fuckin' horrible thing t' go through."

"Oh, he's better!" Anika said with a determined sort of cheerfulness. "They took off the restraints on Monday because he stopped asking them to kill him. I mean, he'd still like to die, and Nate and I both know that because we tried to do the same thing, but see, we know, so we know what to watch out for."

Amanda nodded. "It's hard, havin' t' deal with what yer've done, even if it wasn't yer fault." She could have meant herself, or Nate, or any number of people. "Nate's been pretty cagey 'bout him... I get the feelin' he's tryin' t' protect me from somethin', an' there's only a couple of things that would have t' do with me an' Mick. If I had t' guess... Columbia? Was he there?"

Anika shook her head. "Not at Columbia," she said. "He was there in August, though. At the warehouse, to take Nate back. That might be it. Or Nate might just be shielding you in general, you know," she continued with a wise look. "He's very tired. Too much happening and his shields aren't very good. I've known telepaths since I was eleven. I can tell."

"Oh." Amanda frowned a little. Yes, it probably was because of the warehouse, although Nate tended to try and protect her from all things Mistra to an almost pathalogical degree since Columbia. "An' yeah, he is tired. 'S all over his aura. I'd hit him with a sleep spell again only I promised I wouldn't do that again."

"He told me about your sleep spells." Anika's dark eyes danced wickedly. "Like I said. He talks about you all the time. Over email, I mean. We don't manage phone calls very often. Security and all. I've still got too much of my conditioning left to be calling attention to myself. Although Dom comes to Paris sometimes to see me and we usually have a lot of fun..."

"He does?" A pleased blush came over her face, and it was a sign of how far Amanda had come that she didn't add 'only good stuff I hope' to that. "An' you know Dom? Oh, see, now I like you even more. Anyone who gets on with Dom is my kind of people."

"Dom was really good to me when Nate got me out." Anika frowned briefly. "I was really kind of a mess for the first little while. But Dom's very patient. You wouldn't think that, but she is. I think she learned that from GW and Nate. Quite the little family, the three of them. I wish I could have stayed, but it wasn't a good idea at the time."

"An' she makes a good pillow, too." Amanda smiled at Anika's curious expression. "She came, after Columbia. I got t' experience the whole patient thing, tho' she made me swear t' secrecy." With a slight shrug, Amanda said. "I have a bit of a knack for gettin' meself into trouble. 'S what Nate calls me, 'Trouble'." Then a thought struck her. "Okay, what did you get? 'Cause if yer one of Nate's, you'll have a nickname."

"Oh, that's easy. He gave me a nickname when I was fifteen and he was trying to convince the directors not to have me terminated. Started calling me 'champ', because I kept beating the training exercises, even the ones they came up with to make me fail so that they could get rid of me."
"'Terminated'? Fuckin' hell. For real?" Amanda knew the answer to that and went on without waiting for a reply. "That's just... fuck, I wish I could do somethin', stop the whole thing. 'S not bloody right." She clenched her fists, a faint flicker of power crackling over the knuckles and making her dizzy.

Anika was giving her hands a very wary look, her nose twitching rapidly. "No, it's really not right, but blowing up the hall would be a really bad idea, no? People are trying to sleep and have sex, after all."

"Right now I couldn't blow me nose, let alone blow up the hall," Amanda replied, but took the hint and stuffed her hands in her pockets. "Sorry, used a fuck load of magic tonight, an' it tends t' make me a little hair-trigger. An' those bastards make me lose it a bit." Raspberries, she reminded herself. Get back that feeling of achievement and release and _not_ scare the nice cat-lady.

"Oh, I can sympathize with wanting to do very, very bad things to them," Anika said, relieved that the ozone-y smell had gone away. That rarely meant good things. "Trust me. I fantasize about it regularly, but Nate keeps telling me that he'll leave me to get out of it on my own if I go looking for trouble and find it. He's no fun at all at times, have you noticed that?"

"A bit. Usually when it comes t' the boyfriend tho'." Amanda rubbed her forehead a little - the dizzy feeling was still there.

"Boyfriend? You have a boyfriend?" Anika tilted her head. "He mentioned a girlfriend, I thought. Beth? He likes Beth."

"One of each," Amanda said with a grin. "Beth he likes. Manny... not so much. It was him that got hurt, tho'."

Anika's nose twitched. "You're glossing over a lot," she said with a certain amount of humor. "Discretion smells like roasting chestnuts. I can appreciate that, though. Though don't tell me Nate's trying to intimidate your boyfriend or something? Because that would be so stereotypical."

"Not on my account. 'S more a personal thing." Amanda considered the other woman and decided she could possibly _mention_ it at least. "He's an empath, so really not Nate's favourite type of person. An' they really don't get on any way."

Anika, rather than just Anika's nose, twitched. "Oh," she said, her eyes just a little wider than they had been. "I get it now. Yeah, not my favorite type of person either, but I'd like to think I'm optimistic enough to realize that not all empaths are evil manipulative bastards who do terrible things to you. I mean, I haven't known many good telepaths, either, but Nate's a telepath and so they can't be all bad, and your Professor seems very nice, too. So generalizations are bad! Yes. Very bad."

"Figured yer'd get it. Besides, Manny's flat on his back in the medlab with a dampener on, so he ain't much of a threat t' anyone. Not that he is _usually_, but I thought I'd let you know." Amanda sighed, but at least she hadn't had the usual response of 'Your boyfriend's an asshole!' she usually got. Well, not yet - it wasn't like Anika had actually _met_ him yet. "But yeah, generalisations're bad. Doesn't stop people makin' 'em tho' - you wouldn't believe how many Harry Potter jokes I get."

Anika reached out and poked Amanda lightly in the upper arm. "Don't do that," she scolded. "Raspberries, remember! Raspberries do not go with vinegar. So stop stewing about that and focus on this thing you did tonight."

Amanda blinked at Anika. She was being poked. By a rather attractive cat-woman. Who was telling her to smell like raspberries. The absurdity of it - of everything, really - struck her and she started giggling. "Do you like ice-cream?" she asked eventually, when she could - her side hurt from laughing, but it was a good hurt. "'Cause there's some raspberry ripple in the freezer in our suite. An' I know it's still there 'cause I put a 'hands off' ward on it meself."
"Ice cream sounds marvelous," Anika said, visibly perking. Licking her lips, actually. "Mick is all settled for the night, and Nate is--well, I don't know what Nate is doing, but hopefully sleeping! I, however, am not tired," she pronounced almost loftily. "Like I said. Nocturnal. And I would like some ice cream."

"I ain't nocturnal, but I make a pretty good impersonation," Amanda said with a grin.