The Art of Searching - Honor Tags Thomas

[Honor Sayers]

She supposed she shouldn't grumble. She was being paid to train students on how to use their powers, why shouldn't she also train a trainer? Some of them were just as clueless as their trainees, she shouldn't be surprised that she was assigned to a training officer. An intern of sorts. Whom she could easily bully to doing what she wanted. He was new. He wouldn't even know what was happening.

As she waited in the office, she kept having to ask every single person who entered the room if they were Thomas Lajoie and so far, none of them was. It became irritating that she finally turned on her computer, spoke into it to find Word Document and typed out Thomas' name and asking him to find her.

She pasted it on the office door and went back to her desk. Now all she had to do was wait. It wasn't the most ideal thing to do in her free time but it was either that or tracking him down herself and that wasn't something she wanted to subject herself to.

[OOC: Holy malaria this truly and utterly sucks but there you go. I hope against all odds that this turns out better in the end for your sake >_<]

[Thomas Lajoie]

[Puhlease, we'll make it work. ;] ]

"MMMMONNNNDIEEEUUUUSAACCRRIIIFFFIIICCCEEEEEE"

Running down the halls was not something students were allowed to do at Hammel. However, as a staff member, he felt that it was excusable. Especially because he was running late to his first meeting of the rest of his career, which wasn't exactly how he had planned starting off. He also anticipated on wearing a nice shirt, a tie, and a cute sweater - or something even slightly professional. Instead, he was in loose basketball shorts and a small black tank top. He had been dancing in a training room, keeping himself in pique physical condition for the beginning of classes, when he realized it was TODAY he had to meet with Honor, not tomorrow.

Sweat was left in small drops as he darted down the halls to the offices, and read hurridly the names on the signs as he passed them by. Who in their right mind shows up late, in this outfit, to a meeting with their interim boss. He found the door, with a note on it for him, and stopped. This was it. He took a couple deep breaths, tried to lower his heart rate, and went into the room with a smile.

There, at a desk, was a woman waiting for him. She was beautiful, and seemed unimpressed at waiting for a new kid to show up and explain themselves.

"'onor Sayers?" he asked, knocking on the door as he entered, only to be polite. "I'm Toemah Lajwah, I'm so sorry to keep you waiting. he said, in his best attempt to be polite and calm with his heart beating through his ears.

[Honor Sayers]

Hearing her name, Honor looked up at where the voice was coming from and frowned. Had she a more intimidating stature [5'7" just wasn't intimidating. Not at all], she would have stood up but as it were, she just sat where she was, her fingers fiddling with her shades.

"Thomas," she looked up to where she had first heard his voice, her eyes going way off past his shoulder, an eerie smile on her face. "I understand you're new. And this bushy tailed act of yours would probably be around for quite some time. So I'm going to cut it short so you'd save a lot of my time.

"I was sought after, and not the other way around so when an appointment is made, you really should make sure you get here on time." She maintained her smile throughout her speech, completely uncaring of the fact that she had been in the same position as him not so long ago.

"Would I be wrong in assuming that you've never done this before?" She got up, sliding her hand on top of her desk smoothly until she found her stick. Unfurling it to the ground, she walked over to the door where Thomas was probably standing.

[Thomas Lajoie]

Thank you, Hammel Institute. After all, it’s not like going from being buddy buddy with your peers to their authority isn’t hard enough. No - throw him in a cage with the Ice Queen and hope her bitter words don’t shatter him to pieces before he starts. Parfait.

Certainly, Thomas knew the importance of being punctual and to honor his responsibilities - but this woman was taking it to a whole other level. She wasn’t the CEO of a fashion magazine, so her attitude was considerably jarring in an atmosphere such as the school. Thomas immediately felt the urge in himself to speak up and combat her sass, but he swallowed hard and refused to let his cynicism show. Just yet, at least.

“Again, my apologies. It won’t ‘appen again. My tail is no longer bushy.” he said, struggling to lace his words with a shred of sincerity, and smirking all the same. From what he could tell, however, his insatiable need to smirk in the face of authority would go unnoticed by this woman, she was seemingly blind. This also meant she could not see the atrocity that was his ouftit, which he was thankful for. He obviously didn’t need another reason to get on her bad side.

He watched as she approached him, and answered calmly, in a much more relaxed tone. “Yes, dis is my first time as a trainer. I’ve been at the school since I was quite young, however - so the institute is no stranger.” he added, not wanting to be completely inferior and inexperienced in his guru’s presence. Maybe she’d totally have a change of heart, and become his BFF. That, or she’d drive one of the freshly sharpened pencils from her desk and ram it through his cheek. Either way - there was definitely chemistry of some sort in the room.

[Honor Sayers]

What nobody seemed to account for despite her disability is that Honor had an ear for inflections. Accents and changes in tone of voice were her niche and even though she couldn't see Thomas' smirk, she heard it in his voice. Even his choice of words were indicative of the fact that he was definitely not sincere. Whether his apology, or his reassurance that there wouldn't be a repeat of this incident were genuine was still up in the air, as it were.

"Well, that's good to hear." Honor raised an eyebrow before walking past him, touching his shoulder, which seemed to be bare. "Come with me," she said softly. As she walked, she frowned at how bright everything suddenly was compared to the office so she quickly slipped her shades on.

"I might as well tell you now that I won't let you slack off just because you're new. I'm hoping you have a sense of decorum and keep to the schedule I will give you by the end of this meeting." She said, not quite caring if Thomas was keeping up with her.

"What do you expect to achieve from this session with me?" She asked, hoping he at least knew what he wanted to do.

[Thomas Lajoie]

Thomas got the feeling very quickly that Honor did not need her sight to maintain her persona as a stone cold... person. It was discouraging to him to see her continue this behaviour, mostly because he was not being himself around her. In fact, he was afraid if he let his true colours surface, he’d be kept from doing what he loved - which was not an option. As she nearly floated past him with a gentle touch of his arm, he noticed she would definitely understand the shirt he was wearing lacked sleeves. Perfect. Regardless, he followed her out of the room silently and caught up to her with as little noise as possible.

He chose to not respond to her expectations of him, as agreeing in any form held the risk of being misconstrued as over-eager, or harshly sarcastic - both of which seemed to not work well in Honor’s books. Her next question, however, was not as easy to ignore. What did he want out of all of this? The answer was easy in his mind, but putting it into words, let alone English words, was something he struggled to do.

“I’m ‘oping to see in what capacity you can use me. To learn from what you ‘ave done, and learn to ‘elp the kids. I want to give the students a sense of control. It’s ‘ard, being able to do something so potentially ‘armful. I want them to be able to make a difference.” he said, immediately blushing as he closed his mouth. Rambling was definitely one of his personal faults, and rambling so earnestly was not something he was proud of. If he were a student, this authoritative act would have sent him into rebellion. But now, with her ability to make or break his ability to help the students, he was faced with a nervousness he wasn’t used to feeling.

[Honor Sayers]

Had she the knowledge that Thomas thought of her as such, she would have agreed with him wholeheartedly. She wasn't the type to be so easily offended and would more likely relish the fact that people thought so low of her. Simply because she can just do the exact opposite and rub it in their faces.

As Thomas spoke, Honor had the decency to hear him out properly. She was, first and foremost, a trainer. Her methods may be unorthodox, her bedside manners nonexistant, but damn it all if she didn't get things done.

They were approaching the training field and Honor slowed her walk and turned sideways to ackowledge Thomas. "There's really nothing you can teach that they don't already know." Honor replied simply. "But one thing you shouldn't do is coddle them. Sure you want to be nice to them, be nice to them but nice won't get you anywhere. Not all the students here would appreciate you babying them. Sometimes all they need is that little push to realise they need to do something about what they have."

"With me so far, rook?" Honor tilted her head a little in question.

[Thomas Lajoie]

Thomas felt like he had a gushing wound and was swimming in a pool of sharks. Every move he made, every sound he uttered, and the longer he stayed in his situation all attributed toward the chances of him being bit. Hard. The shark he was dealing with seemed to be playing with it’s food, however, instead of laying out his punishment now. He had a growing feeling like the training sessions they would hold had the potential to involve some pretty serious punishments. The idea of a nine-to-five day job was looking better and better...

Before he could blink, the shark had turned into a drill sergeant, and was explaining how a stern hand and a forceful teaching approach was the key to a students success. Unfortunately for her, she was dealing with a total hippy. If the wheat germ breakfast he managed to swallow and the occassional use of illegal substance wasn’t enough to label him as such, his disdain for power-hardy authority figures certainly would. He would refuse to run his classes as such, but for as long as he studied under her, you could call him Corporal.

”The rook is following... Queen.” he said, clearly missing her use of abbreviation and assuming she was referring to chess. If he was the rook, and she was the queen, that made their students the pawns. How horrible!

They approached the training field, and Thomas’ eyes lit up. Here he would spend so much of the following year helping students realize their potential, and control their gifts. Here he would make a difference. He couldn’t keep from grinning wildly, and emitting a small “meep” like noise.

Some kids never grow up.

[Honor Sayers]

The silence from Thomas made Honor smirk. Was she wrong in intimidating the new recruit so early on in his career? Yes. Did she care? Hell no.

But he did respond and his response was satisfactory. She didn't hear any sarcasm, or rather, she turned a deaf ear to it as she raised her walking stick to find the doorway to the training grounds and found it, pushing against it and entering.

The small noise coming from Thomas had Honor rolling her eyes and finding a seat. The heat was barely tolerable but she thought she could sit there for awhile before going back to the comfort of her dark office.

Sitting down, she crossed her legs, tugging her knee length skirt over her knees. No, she did not care about modesty, she just didn't want that part of her burned under the unforgiving sun.

"What did your own trainer help you with when you were here?" Honor asked, folding her walking stick and still gripping it, she folded her hands over her lap.

[Thomas Lajoie]

Honor had this air about her that made Thomas want to shit his pants. He felt like, had he been attracted to women, she would illicit another response as well - but as it stood, that was not the case. He followed her hour glass frame through the glass doors of the training grounds, and watched as she sat down in one of the rigid seats and adjusted her skirt. A straight man would lick his lips, and walk past her before sitting down slowly, and making brief arm contact. Thomas, being no straight man and mostly squirrel, quickly popped into the seat closest to her and crossed his legs, criss-cross applesauce. He bopped his head from side to side as he mulled over the question - feeling delirious with all of the emotional exhaustion this procedure was putting him through.

"I spent a lot of time on control. Technique was never difficult for me to learn, but precise control - adjustments, full manipulation - that took time. I was very naive as to what I could do, and what harm I could cause. Until training, I had no idea I could help people either. Training helped me learn my raison d'être . My uh... reason for being." he said, aware that in English, this all sounded more cheesy than he intended.

"What about you?!" he said, smiling with genuine curiosity. A knot grew in his stomach as he realized he was asking a cold hearted snake this question, and not his bff. She was going to slap him.

[Honor Sayers]

Honor made no gesture of actually listening to Thomas apart from sitting there beside him without interrupting. She personally knew all about power control. She had honed in on hers quickly enough. Then again, it actually hadn't been so hard to in the first place. She liked to believe that her powers were simply an extension to her pre-existing nature.

She briefly remembered his power from the file she was sent. Hemokinesis. Had she had that power...she could have rectified her disability a long time ago. But having lived with it since birth, she had grown quite accustomed to it and kind of depended on it now for a lot of things.

Her ruminations were interrupted when Thomas suddenly asked his question. She turned to where his voice came from and frowned. "You have a habit of doing that, don't you..." she sighed inaudibly, remarking on his seemingly never-ending supply of happy. "My trainer taught me nothing I didn't already know. All she did was say useless fluff about how I'm the master of my destiny and that I'm capable of more than I give myself credit for. As if I didn't already know." She rolled her eyes and looked straight back to the front.

"You best learn not to get too attached to your trainees. You might be passed around a lot in the course of training. And get a standard set of exercises for all the different classes of power. There are five major classes. Kinetic, mental, meta, physical and dimension. Physical is the easiest to train. Kinetic is a close second." Honor explained. This was a little different than training a student. She had never had to explain what she did. Not that she actually expected Thomas to follow her method. He was a little too...genuine for it.

"But really, practically all abilities come from here," she tapped the side of her head with two fingers. "If you can help your trainees unlock that part of their mind that's connected to their ability, everything will be smooth sailing. If you get those that are connection to emotions, play with those emotions, make the students control those emotions or at least store them away for the moment." At this rate, she was mostly just pulling crap out of her ass. If Thomas was smart, he'd probably figure out his own way of teaching anyway. All she was supposed to do was make sure he passes the requirements for official training and it really wasn't that hard.

Not that she was actually going to tell him that. Nice people helped other people. Honor was no nice.

[OOC: Ohoho, would you look at that. SO MUCH BULLSHIT >_<]

[Thomas Lajoie]

Thomas resisted the urge to check his neck and ensure that Honor had not, in fact, ripped his head off. She made a snide comment and moved on to explaining herself - quite pessimistically at that. Thomas would need to make every effort to stay cheerful around Honor, as she had an uncanny way of making things quite dim and ill-seeming. She apparently benefited nothing from her trainer, and could have been without one. Thomas frowned at this idea, and hoped kids never thought the same about him. Maybe playing it tough was a decent way at avoiding that.

Her next speech, however, was much harder for Thomas to swallow. Not get attached to his students? He wasn't sure that was an option. In his opinion, you only invest yourself in that which is worthwhile. If students hold the potential to shape the world they embark in, they are definitely worthwhile. He would get invested, and for damn good reasons. He needed these kids to succeed - so his kids could grow up in a world much kinder to them than it was to people who had come before them.

The meta-human breakdown was nothing new for him - trainers had divided classes into these categories before. Thomas hated it, as he didn't relate well with other kinetics. They were all about action, offense, and annihilation. Thomas would rather wait, feel things out, and react to a situation. But it was helpful to learn from their techniques none the less. And he was hoping he'd learn from Honor's as well, so he kept listening.

He made a mental note of what she was saying - that most powers were linked to the brain. He agreed completely, but was much more romantic about the whole thing. He knew what she was getting at, but he figured he would speak up now and give her more of an idea who she was working with. There was no sense in denying his sappiness any longer. "'onor, what you call a brain, I call a 'eart. Gain someone's trust, learn how they feel, and teach them how to control these feelings. Most of them are um... in puberty - their brains aren't much to be reasoned with so logically. At least, mine wasn't." he said, a small laugh escaping his mouth as he finished. It was not in any way a defiantly toned comment. Rather, it was exactly what she was pulling from him. His own style.

"I would 'ate to take up more of your time, Honor. When will you be 'olding your first class, and 'ow should I prepare?" he asked, sounding more blunt than he intended while struggling to express his question. She seemed unhappy to be around him, and the last thing he wanted was to make her unhappy.

[Honor Sayers]

Thomas' notion of the heart driving the powers was met with a jaded smirk. It seemed quite unfair to Honor that he thought that way. Her heart did not have any part of her succeeding in graduating Hammel early. Be it academically or based on her abilities. Everything had been satisfyingly technical up till now. Oh how Thomas differed completely from Honor.

Well, at least the man [at least Honor hoped Thomas was a man and not a boy] had the decency to not 'take up more of' her time. She stood up, pushing down her skirt when a breeze picked up in the area. "I'll have you sit in on one of my training sessions tomorrow afternoon." She said, unfurling her walking cane. "In the meantime, you seriously need to toughen up. This nice guy act will only get you so far." With that, she walked back the way she came from, leaving Thomas alone.

[OOC: I am so forever sorry for Honor's...crazy >_< But wrap! ^^]

[Thomas Lajoie]

Her jaded smirk was noticed by Thomas, and he stored it in his repository of Honor's reactions. He would need to be able to read her like a book during their lessons - see how much he could get away with, and where she drew the line. Apparently, she was fine with him having his own style. That was reassuring at least. That is, until she totally wasn't okay with it.

He rolled his eyes again in response to her toughened up speech. He was going to show her just how nice he could be, without stopping, and to every person equally. She would learn that her style is not the only viable option for teaching kids their true potential. And most of all, she would learn to love Thomas. Somewhere deep in that... raisin she called a heart.

"GOODBYE 'ONOR!" he shouted after her as she gained distance from where he was sitting. "THE PLEASURE WAS ALL MINE!"

She was going to kill him tomorrow. And he was going to die happy.