April 9: Jean and Kylun by the lake

[x-kylun.livejournal.com]

Jean and Kylun have a chance meeting and a nice talk, toss unfamiliar metaphors at each other, and resolve to help each other with their various problems.



The noise had driven her out of the Mansion again. She had really started to get used to it again, but then the incident with Hank had happened and Jean was still trying to regather her rattled self control. And in the meantime, she just took a lot of walks out on the grounds.

There were still people out here, sometimes, but they were much easier to deal with individually with the noise of the school behind her. Actually, now that she came to think about it, she could hear someone, but either they were much farther away than they 'felt' or much better at reflexive shielding than most of the school. Which, since it wasn't Scott, Hank or Ororo only left so many options.

Kylun sat on a rock near the lake, comfortably perched with his legs folded under him, staring out over the water. He was not quite meditating; it was simply that, as sometimes happened, the constant chaos and bustle of the school, as well as the still-surprising technology, had sent him outside in search of fresh air and peace.

He turned at Jean's soft footfall behind him, and smiled when he saw who it was. "May the Circle turn toward joy for you today," he called in greeting. "Did you come in search of me, or are you simply taking advantage of the weather?"

"Came out for peace and quiet, actually, more than anyone or anything else, but it's good to see you. How have you been?" Since taking the inhibitor off Jean had found that Kylun's mind was one of the most calm and peaceful in the mansion and, while it wasn't as familiar to her as Scott or Ororo's was, it was very comforting to be around someone who was so self-controlled.

"I am well. My classes regularly exceed my expectations, and my own education . . . proceeds, though not as quickly as I would like." He chuckled softly. "I think perhaps we came in search of the same thing, though I would imagine that the . . . flavors of our quiet differ. I hope your training goes well?"

Jean sighed. "Well might be an overstatement, but it goes. Certainly more of my coping methods for the mental noise have returned, and much of my focus, but I still can not shield with any real strength."

Kylun nodded sympathetically. "You are as one badly injured, who must learn to walk again, but still remembers what it was to run. And worse still, I think." He quirked a grin. "I always found the mental disciplines far more difficult than the physical, small encouragement though that must be for you."

"A reasonably apt analogy," Jean said, "and while it may not be terribly encouraging, sympathy and understanding never go astray."

Kylun stretched out one leg carefully, taking up a more relaxed posture. "I am glad to help in whatever way I can," he said softly. "A friend in difficulty is not something I bear easily." Smiling again, he added "Or even someone who is, perhaps, not quite a friend yet, for lack of time spent together, but who I hope will truly become one soon?"

Jean smiled back at him. "I am always glad for more friends, and more help. And, I must tell you, you have one of the most calming minds in the school, which is a help in and of itself."

Kylun laughed. "I believe that is the first time I have received a compliment like that. I am glad to be calming--it seems to be a much-needed trait, in this place." He tilted his head curiously. "Was it much different, when you first began your studies? From what others have said, I gather there was a significant expansion a year or two ago."

"Very different, yes." This was starting to feel like the prelude to story time, and while she didn't mind story time at all, it would make more sense if she were at least comfortable. She sat down on the grass as far from the edge of the lake as she could get while still being in his line of sight. "I was actually one of Charles' first students here and the few of us who were here were very close. It was just me and the boys, until Ororo came along, and we were more like a family than anything else."

Kylun slid down the side of the rock to join Jean on the grass, noticing as he did so how the movement put the heavy mass of stone between the two of them and any sight of the water. "It sounds a good deal quieter--though I would think so few would rattle around in this house." He smiled reminiscently. "The monastery was much like that--a family, I mean. We were perhaps a little larger than the school is now, but by the end . . . all of them were people I had known all my life, who raised me, or were those I had raised and trained myself. There is a great comfort in such a strong community."

"Oh, we did rattle around somewhat," Jean admitted. "But for a small handful of teenagers that was more a positive than otherwise - everyone had their own rooms and pleanty of space to go to get away from each other. And also, back then we were almost exclusively using the east wing. I don't think I'd been in the west wing more than a handful of times. From what I hear our current residences are entirely Cain's doing. You're right, though, about the feeling of community." She could smile about it now, for after four weeks back she no longer felt so much the outsider in that community.

"They are very . . . aggressively inclusive." Kylun tilted his head slightly. "Or perhaps 'aggressively' is not quite the word; it is not unwelcome, and when I first arrived, that sense of . . . being invited, or . . . enfolded, immediately, into the community, was very much what I needed." He snorted softly. "Though even after almost a year, I could wish that not quite as much of the community went on over the journals. Everyone has been very helpful with the computers, but they are stubborn machines and best me as often as not."

"Mmmm, perhaps 'persistently inclusive'?" Jean offered. "One gets the feeling that, while they might take 'no' for an answer once or twice, they're not going to stop asking." She nodded at the mention of the journals. "Yes, Hank's little experiment does seem to have rather taken hold. And to think, when he first installed the system, I was sure it wouldn't hold their interest for more than a few weeks."

Kylun nodded gratefully. "That is it precisely, I think. 'See, the glacier,'" he quoted, his voice falling into a practiced, unconscious cadence. "'When action fails, and will falters, the glacier is; it endures, and it cannot be denied.'" His smile turned slightly sheepish. "Your pardon; one of the unavoidable side-effects of a seven-thousand-year-old philosophy, it seems, is a saying for every occasion. I believe," he added thoughtfully, "that the journals first began to grow popular when the first of the new students arrived. Perhaps they made adjusting to so many new faces easier, for those who were already here."

"The mansion does have the feeling of being an inexorable, unavoidable block of something or other, all of the dangerous bits of which aren't apparent at first glance, I'll give you." Jean smiled wryly. "Does that make all of us the Titanic to have run aground against it?"

Kylun looked nonplussed. "I . . . this 'Titanic' . . . I am not sure what you mean by it. I know that I feel more and more that I have come home." He grinned suddenly. "But then, where I grew up, glaciers were commonplace."

Jean smiled. "Sorry, a rather tortured analogy, I'm afraid. The Titanic was a cruise liner which, through a series of misfortunes, ran into a iceberg and sank. I fear I'm feeling a bit... underequipped to handle life currently."

"I know the feeling. I live with it every day." Kylun's smile took a sardonic edge. "I have been reading history, and if I did not know better, I would swear that the Industrial Revolution was allowed to take place solely in order to inconvenience me." He shook his head. "Zz'ria was fond of saying that even the longest journey was simply one single step after another. Each step prepares you for the next, and there is no shame in resting when you have taken as many steps as you can manage. Or in leaning on a friend, at need."

"One step after another." Jean smiled. "Yes, I think I can do that. I hope I can, anyways, and I'm trying to. And I am happy to offer you my shoulder to lean on, should you need a rest."

"I had meant to offer my own shoulder," Kylun replied mock-reprovingly. "I have relatively few demands on my time, and your duties as a healer give you a much greater burden of care to bear." He smiled. "However,I would be a fool to turn down such an offer, and I have been trying to cut down on foolishness."

"Ah, well then, we can lean on each other and the path will become easier for the company."

"My thoughts exactly." Kylun chuckled. "In an entirely non-psychic sense."