Alone? Unacceptable. [Seraphine]

[Deleted]

“No,” she answered shortly. “I was raised in Delaware.” Sera didn’t care that it may be a disappointing answer for the eager, bubbly girl. Just because she was of Chinese descent and she knew Mandarine did not automatically make her a foreigner. Sera was beginning to think of Calysma as a really stupid girl for make such assumptions.

Sera was starting to get full from her meal, which was already quite light. She set down her utensil and sipped at her drink instead, her eyes on the energetic girl who continued to talk. Sera didn’t answer the girl’s question right away - she couldn’t even if she tried, Calysma seemed to have an endless supply of air in which to speak with - but once it seemed like there was a pause enough for Sera to interject, she took it, here expression icy. “Don’t assume you know anything about my power. It is not as simple as stories like to make it seem.” Though Sera hadn’t actually seen any of the stories…and in fact, if she paid attention, she’d realize that even in those stories, it was a difficult and troubling power to control.

She took a breath, long and slow. In through the nose and out through her gently parted lips. The air surrounding them may have taken a slight drop in temperature. “I can pull it from any water source. If it has water in it, I can freeze it.” As long as it didn’t have too many other sediments and such mixed in with it. She was still learning just how saturated water had to be with other materials before it became out of her control…along with a number of other things.

Sera assumed the matter of family and siblings was finished after that and said nothing more on the matter.

Instead, she supposed it was her turn to ask questions, as troublesome and distasteful as it was. “You asked me where I’m from. How about you? Where did you grow up?” Not that she cared.

[Calysma Jamille]

"Oh, okay. I just wondered since you said you were around Chinese a lot..." Cal grinned. "Delaware is cool too though! I grew up in California. Have you ever been there?" It seemed like a lot of people she'd met had been to California. It had good beaches, she guessed. Like Florida. Except with earthquakes instead of hurricanes. Eugh, earthquakes. She didn't miss those.

Cal was nodding with all her might again as Sera admonished her that the power wasn't as simple as stories make them seem. "I didn't think ice powers were super easy. I'm just sayin', it's a cool power, and it matches you. Mine's not easy either." Meh, but she didn't care to keep on that particular part of the subject, something more light-hearted was better. "It doesn't really match me either! You know, in stories the mind-control person is usually super serious or evil or something." She snickered, figuring it was obvious why her power didn't match, and of course why that made it funny.

If the temperature dropped slightly, Cal didn't notice. One couldn't have named her the most observant of people to her surroundings. "So could you pull it from a person, then?" she asked, quizzical. Sure the question was somewhat morbid, but she asked it with perfect innocence. "Since people have so much water in 'em?"

"I grew up in Sanger!" she answered promptly in return to Sera's question, extremely pleased that her fellow student had asked a question on her own. It's close to San Jose. People usually know that city better 'cause Sanger is kinda small compared to the other bigger cities. It's funny though 'cause since I'm from California, people can call me Cali Callie." She laughed a little, but not too much, her new friend didn't seem to like a lot of laughter, and she always did her best to adjust to each of her friends. "Where in Delaware did you grow up?"

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Was this girl a complete idiot? Sera wondered. Just because she was of Chinese descent, had Chinese family members, and associated with Chinese people, did not mean that she automatically was raised in China. Had she never heard of the various Chinatowns that were in several of the large cities? Some of those families had been there for generations. She pushed aside the girl’s stupidity and continued the conversation. “I’ve been to California,” she said succinctly. Sera had been there on various vacations. She had even planned to go there next year with Carleigh and hopefully a few others.

Calysma’s ramblings on powers was nonsense, so Sera mostly tuned it out. But her mention of people with “mind control” powers being “super serious or evil” did have Sera reminiscing about her friend Alice. Yes, she was that kind of person. And Sera loved her for it. Sera was that kind of person as well. Hence why she thought the power would suit her better. “You may have a point there. A power like yours would undoubtedly suit me better than you.” Sera didn’t care if people called her evil. They didn’t know anything about her, but that alone wasn’t going to stop them from making ignorant judgements. She knew who she was and why she did the things she did. And that was all that mattered.

They could all eat horse-shit for all she cared.

Sera looked up at the suggestion. Pulling it from a person? Potentially she could freeze a person under that logic. But…that would kill them. “Possibly,” she answered, turning back down to her meal. “I’ve never tried, though. And…I probably won’t.” Sera wanted to control people, not kill them.

So, Sera knew that she was from California. Calysma said that earlier. But California was a big place. The area of the north wasn’t necessarily the same as the areas from the south. And Sangeri…oh, it was close to San Jose. Sera knew where that was, at least. Smaller cities weren’t something she made a habit of paying attention to. “San Jose is a nice place to live,” she commented. Though she hadn’t lived there herself, she knew a few people who had. “Wilmington,” she replied. It was the biggest city in such a small state. “In the outskirts. My parents own some land around there.”