I'm Not the Child You're Looking For... [Lani]

[Lani Hunter]

Watching the little girl, Lani was starting to get the idea that she was a curious child. It would be a lot more efficient for her to just ask her questions but he supposed he couldn’t really judge her for being wary. Philosophy was definitely a lot better discussed over coffee and hard to write descriptions of things that made no sense, or perhaps they actually made a lot of sense, they just hadn’t gotten the sense enough to see that there was truly sense to it at all. The world was full of mysteries, and usually those in science made the foolish assumption of dismissing philosophy as a dead science but there was nothing more satisfying than studying the art of thinking. It had to be a skill to be able to ask the questions of the things that no one thought about.

Oh well, he thought dismissively, she was young, either she would grow up and learn a better method, or maybe she wouldn’t. Regardless, she would need a better way of communicating if she wanted to get people to listen. Sad as it was, for this little girl had quite a few interesting things to say. Lani cocked is head interested. “But it’s your rule and we’re playing by your rules” Lani wrote, “It is be rude of me to break it.” Lani wrote as his mind formed the words, with no more thought about moving the pencil then if his hand were moving it. Lani considered the girl looking up on him. She was quite a peculiar child, his curiosity was making it hard for him not to pepper her with questions. Why she wrote was the most fascinating. She didn’t seem to lack the ability but then he could be wrong there.

He smiled and shook his head at her. He didn’t buy it not for a second. She was smarter than that, things were not mono-purpose. At least not the way they always seemed. She had to know that. She probably spent a lot of time watching people, and she was no doubt a better listener than most people. He let his skeptical expression do all of the talking for him and instead just raised a brow and let her make her own assumptions about what he was thinking. With a small laugh Lani shook his head. “No, just fine.” He wrote to assure her. He had been sick not too long ago but he was certainly not sick anymore. God, that horrible infection. He couldn’t actually remember very well but he was halfway certain that he had told Odion he was sure he was dying. Being sick was not a fun experience, especially when it made his head foggy and his power groggy.

It was a little wearying to have to write everything but well, Lani didn’t really have anything else to do today and his trainer had been nagging him on working on his precision. What better way than to write? Lani barely caught his expression before he winced, it was easy to hide behind a mask, but what she’d written was painful. But it was also true, he realized sadly. “I’m sorry,” he said, but his mind got stuck on what she wrote. ‘Your’ not ‘my’. He watched her for a moment, confused by the strange phrasing. The pencil wriggled in her hand as if unsure of what it wanted to do. Lani indecisively mulled over what he wanted to say. Finally he moved forward. “You’re not a telekinetic?” he looked her right back in the eye, matching her gaze, watching her with the same intensity that she was watching him as he waited for her answer.

[Echo Waverly]

Echo frowned thoughtfully. Rude because they were playing by her rules, huh? Well, that begged the question... "Why are you playing by my rules?" She wanted to say more than that, things like, "People don't play by my rules" and, "These are my rules, so don't touch them", but not only would those have been inconvenient, not to mention time consuming, to write out, but she also at this point wasn't sure that she disliked the fact he was "playing by her rules". It was weird, yes, but also kind've funny. Now that she thought about it, she supposed it was also sort've nice of him.

Hmph. He wasn't buying the "libraries are for reading" thing. Well, whether he did or not, he was silly for not believing it. They were for reading. Reading and checking out books. If you talked too much, you got "shh'd" by people. But that was okay-- he could be wrong if he wanted to be. So long as he didn't get her kicked out of the library.

Echo relaxed a bit when he assured her that he wasn't sick. Of course, that didn't explain why he was coughing, but she guessed people coughed for a lot of different reasons, not just because they were sick. So long as he didn't get germs on her, it didn't matter much to her why he'd decided to cough.

Why was he apologizing? He hadn't meant to scare her, and he hadn't hurt her, and so far as she was concerned, those were the only reasons for having to say sorry. Echo blinked at him, clearly conveying her quizzicalness while debating whether or not it was worth the trouble of writing something. Eh, just something brief to acknowledge it, since he'd gone through the trouble of writing something. "Okay".

You're not telekinetic? There it was. She shook her head, made a face, and then made that wobbly hand gesture adults made when they wanted to indicate that something was kinda right, but not completely. To back it up, she wrote, "Sometimes. Not usually. But you are, so now I am. For now." She paused, tapping her pencil against her lips for a moment as she focused on recalling the real name of her power and how it was spelled. "Power mimicry." She finally wrote, then added, "It's dumb." Because, of course, it was. Original powers were more interesting than ones that copied other peoples'.

[Lani Hunter]

Lani considered her and smiled faintly, she reminded him so much of his little sister. If his little sister was a little more sullen and mute. Caroline had grown a great deal in the year or so she’d been here. She was strong and had no problems scolding her older brother from time to time when he was being an idiot. He waved a hand and shrugged. “Because they’re yours and we’re communicating just fine this way, don’t you think?” he cocked his head at her. His conversation was going more easily, he didn’t have to worry about his hand cramping but sooner or later his power would protest again being used so much and to such precision. It was precision and thinking with his power that he needed to work, so this was a bit of a training exercise as well. “If I had a rule for myself that I didn’t like to touch people when I talked to them and someone kept touching my arm as we spoke, wouldn’t that be rude?”

Technically, libraries were for housing books, people just happened to read there as well. As for not talking, well Lani wouldn’t have been able to resist pointing out that they weren’t talking. She herself had claimed that not too long ago. So long as they weren’t being loud who would care? Lani was comfortable, but he also had a stack of books that was going to be read one way or another. He couldn’t stay here all day, and she doubted she wanted to be here all day either. Unless of course she was very much okay with hanging out in a library all day. Lani couldn’t very well blame her, if she didn’t like to talk to people, what better place than a library. She would have been safe, but then Lani wasn’t really one to follow the rules.

Lani registered her confusion and chose to ignore it. Let her make of it what she would, just as she didn’t really want to talk about why she didn’t speak or her power, Lani really didn’t want to explain why he was so afraid of his own power and how the possibility of hurting people was something he had to live with every second of every day. It wasn’t something that he enjoyed thinking about. But he couldn’t afford not to think about it. He only nodded at her single word. It was probably something that she would figure out on her own if she thought about it. She was a smart girl, she didn’t need things spoon fed to her. She would either dismiss it of think about it and if she thought about it long enough she’d find the answer.

Cocking his head to watch her he found himself amazed by her ability to convey what she was thinking without words. “Ah!” he couldn’t stop himself from exclaiming softly. He frowned at her and shook his head like a dog. “No, no!” he started then shook his head at himself, “Not dumb!” He’d gotten too excited and forgotten for a moment so he forced his power to pick up the pencil and write. But his mind was moving too fast and one word turned into another as his thoughts changed halfway through or his mind was already moving onto another word as the pencil attempted to write the other. He finally ended up scratching out the gibberish he’d written and shook his head at himself. He forced his thoughts to organize and very slowly he wrote, “May I?” And he reached his hand out, hoping she would choose to hand him the page so he could try again. In cases like these he could control his hand more easily than his mind.

[Echo Waverly]

Echo considered the stranger-man Lani's explanation of his following her rules for communicating. She supposed that made sense... She gave a quiet, "Hm", before writing, "But when other people have talk with voices rules, does that mean I'm rude for talking with writing?" She tilted her head to the side, quizzical. She half didn't want him to answer, because she didn't want it to be rude to write. She didn't like being rude, at least, she didn't like it when people were rude to her. So of course she didn't want to be rude to other people and make them feel not happy. And if writing to communicate was rude to people who talked to communicate... well, it would give her something to think seriously about.

For the moment, Echo pushed her confusion at his apology aside. However, during her daily review of conversations, she would no doubt be putting more thought into it. Of course, that was an important part of her notebook system. You couldn't study conversations that you'd had verbally, unless they were recorded. And what better way to decide if someone was really trustworthy than to study conversations you'd had with them, and see if everything lined up and sounded right? Even though most people didn't write in her book, she still had her side of the conversation, and in a day she could usually remember the gist of what the other person had said.

"Ah! No, no!" Echo stared at the stranger-man-Lani when he made the exclamation, soft as it was, then looked down at the beginning of his words, "Not dumb"... and then scribbles. Despite being fully ready to argue the dumb-ness of her power, she couldn't help but grin and giggle a little at his gibberish, as his power didn't listen to him. So even adults with powers had problems with them. That was somehow rather comforting. Because it meant that it was okay not to have her power perfect before she graduated. And that was a huge relief, since her power was so big.

So yes, it was comforting... well, comforting and funny. She was still grinning when he held his hand out for the book, and she handed it over, after only a moment's hesitation. There had been that hesitation, of course-- her notebooks were very special. If she didn't take good care of them, she couldn't review her conversations later. Not to mention stealing just wasn't nice. But she decided that stranger-man-Lani, even though he was strange, wasn't going to run off with her book.

[Lani Hunter]

Lani frowned at the question, well now that was a challenge wasn’t it? She looked interested but wary of the answer, Lani knew it wasn’t his place to say, because there was no yes or no answer to that. This girl was still a child, she was still learning all that the world had to offer, if she kept hiding then she was going to miss out on the world. Lani still didn’t understand why she wrote and without that knowledge he needed to tread carefully. “I can’t answer that for you. But consider this: A girl, like you, doesn’t speak and she cones upon two brothers, one good, one evil, but impossible to tell apart. One is kind and writes back to her, never speaking a word. The other brother is cold, and refusing to read her words because he thinks she is hiding something. The girl and the kind brother become good friends. The other brother is cold to her. They part ways and years later the girl sees the brothers again. One is in chains and the other is a king. The king sees her and takes her to see the other brother. He’s gone blind and is consumed by sorrow and loneliness. When he says to the girl ‘Are you the girl, who never spoke? Will you speak to me now?’ She writes but he cannot see and he dies of sadness.”

Pausing from the writing Lani’s head began to ache all over again. He made up stories for Caroline all the time when she was sick, but he’d never told one using his telekinesis, it was taking a lot out of him. After a moment of recover he scrawled his conclusion. “Who do you think was evil and who do you think was good?” He looked down at her curious about her answer, there was no right one, it wasn’t about who was good and who was evil, not really, it was about choosing when to speak and with whom. It didn’t matter if one was evil or not, it was about the girl’s decision in the end. And that was what it came down to really. Was she going to be that one who kept writing when asked to speak? Or would she have the courage to give those close friends the honor of hearing her voice. Words on paper were all well and fine, but unless someone was like Lani, who lied with voice and pen with ease, lies were easier on paper.

Lani’s frustration with his power amplified as if worked more and more against him. This power wasn’t easy. There was a reason he was still here, he wasn’t technically allowed to be far from Hammel, he had to keep his power under control. While there were moments of slipping where things like this happened, all too often a loss of control meant something far more dangerous. He closed his eyes and slowly and methodically found his ground and found his center and then he closed his power down. Everyone had different opinions about what he should treat his power like. Odion always said it was a part of him, but he lost himself when he let it fully free. His trainer said he was afraid of it and that was why it disobeyed, he had to accept that feeling of disconnect to become reconnected and work through it, but he hit a roadblock there.

He shook his head slightly and opened his eyes to find her grinning. His immediate reaction was to snap at her, but he found his heart softening, if she’d wanted to make fun of him she would have written something not being handing up her notepad to him. He looked at her in surprise, a small part of him never actually thought she’d hand it to him. He smiled warmly at the girl and took her pages and pencil with care. He wrote quickly bracing the pad against the back of the chair. After a few moments he handed it back to her showing: “My best friend has that power! It is not dumb at all! She borrows my power all the time! And not only that, we practice together and she takes other powers and knocks me on my” here a smudge represents a not so innocent word that Lani realize wasn’t for child eyes only after he’d already written it, then worked to erase it. “Your power is the most powerful thing of all. We each have one power, but you – you’re a chameleon! You can do it all! You can fly, and you can breathe water, you can be a telekinetic like me and you can also heal. Your power is not dumb, just more challenging. You should be proud.”

[Echo Waverly]

Echo read the story quietly, surprised at the length of his reply, but not at all against it. She liked stories, after all-- why else would she be in a library? The story interested her, too, despite the fact she automatically picked out various things that didn't make sense to her, completely unrelated to the point of the story. However, she knew better than to interrupt with them. Or to put them forward before answering Lani-Stranger-Man's question. He'd asked first, after all.

She chewed her lip in thought and tapped her pencil against her notebook. Taking her to see the other brother didn't seem like something an evil person would do. But dying of sadness didn't seem like something an evil person would do either. Or maybe it was-- if they were so suspicious that no one liked them. That made sense. She nodded and righted the pencil. "The evil one is the suspicious one in chains," she wrote, matter-of-fact. "He's lonely and sad because he' so suspicious of everyone. And he got evil because he's lonely and sad. And an evil brother wouldn't let me see the other brother anyway." She leaned back against the wall. Though the question was answered, she was far from being done talking about the story. "It's smart to be a little suspicious though. Evil people can pretend to be happy. But you can usually tell if they're lying about being happy. REAL happy looks different than fake happy. REALLY happy people aren't evil." She paused again, then added. "It wasn't very nice for the girl to not talk."

Echo waited patiently when Lani-Stranger-Man took the notebook and began writing. While he did, she thought about the fact she could learn to write with telekinesis like him, and how fun that could be. It could be an interesting change of pace, at least. Telekinesis was a fun power, she was pretty sure. Almost as cool as ice powers. She pulled out of her musings as Lani handed the notebook back, and she quickly read over the page. Of course, the smudged out word bugged her, and she shot him a brief scowl before trying to erase the area better, then finishing the sentence out with, "butt". Incomplete sentences were way more annoying than smudged paper. She gave him one more exasperated look before finishing the reading.

"Chameleon's are creepy," she wrote, knowing full well it had nothing to do with his point, but still grumpy over the smudge and unfinished sentence. If he hadn't been a grown-up, and one that she liked, she would have been very tempted to shove him off the chair for it. But he was a grown-up, and so she could get away with a lot less in her temper flares. And anyway, people she liked got cut a little slack. Or a lot of slack, depending. And since she liked Lani the Stranger Man so far, her temper diffused a little more swiftly than usual.

"I still think it's dumb," she scribbled, though more out of stubbornness. She hesitated a moment before continuing, "You make it sound cooler."

[Lani Hunter]

Lani took a moment to let his power rest as she read. It was a lot of effort to write something that long and he was feeling it. It felt as if he’d hadn’t taken any of his pain killers in the first place. She looked like she was putting some real thought into this. Good. Lani smiled as he watched her. He wondered if this was how a teacher felt when a student dedicated to learning paused to think before answering. He cocked his head and smiled at the girl as she answered she seemed very sure of herself in her answer. And who knew maybe she was right, but she wasn’t thinking as deeply as she could. It was just as easy for the evil brother to be kind and welcoming in falsehood and the good brother to be wary of her because he knew the other brother was evil. But her reasoning was something in merit.

He thought he had it figured out himself, but then she surprised him. His expression became thoughtful and suddenly he felt as if she had turned a mirror on him as she wrote. She wasn’t just making vast assumptions, she’d thought about it and she’d thought about it in a completely different way. Lani hadn’t even thought that deeply into it. Her words struck a nerve. He’s lonely and sad because he’s so suspicious of everyone. Lani’s lips leveled and his eyes looked at the page but didn’t really see it. He’d barely met her, and said very little to her, but yet she seemed to have written him incredible detail. She was just a child, yet she seemed to have seen right through Lani’s masks. The telekinetic shifted, this time uncomfortably. He smiled warmly at her, he hoped that she’d found her answer that way. “I think you’re right,” he wrote thoughtfully. “You’re a wise girl.” She reminded him a lot of his sister, she was stronger and wiser than he had expected.

While she was reading Lani snuck another two pills. He didn’t know why he was hiding, but something about coming off as a drug addict didn’t appeal to Lani. He knew he wasn’t but there are those who had commented before and well, the telekinetic hadn’t meant it easily. He looked down at her and catching her look he raised his brows at her. She didn’t offer an explanation for the look but instead went back to reading. Maybe he hadn’t erased that word well enough and she judged him for a moment. Oh well, no big deal, what’s done was done and it wasn’t like he could change it now if she’d already seen it. He shrugged and waited for her to say something. He crossed his arms over the back of the chair and rested his chin on his arms. As he waited he looked out the window at the graying sky.

He snorted out a laugh at the unexpected response. He covered his mouth with a hand to hide his smile and keep himself from laughing aloud. “Really? They’re so cool though!” He protested, snatching her pencil telekinetically. He let it go as soon as he’d had his say, but he couldn’t keep himself from smiling. The telekinetic looked down at the notebook again. With a nod he took up her pencil again. “Fair enough. I used to not like my power either.” She was young, she would learn from Hammel and the more she learned about her power and the more she grew in her life and in her power, perhaps she would learn to live her power. It took Lani too long to figure it out, but it was something they were stuck with and pretending it didn’t exist didn’t do anything to help him. Problem being, he’d gotten his power so late, he should have started training immediately.

“I still think it’s very cool,” Lani wrote. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He checked it and almost laugh to himself. Maybe this girl was onto something. Most people communicated via text now anyways. It was Caroline and she was asking if they were still on for their movie night. He smiled and texted his sister a happy affirmative. “You wouldn’t happen to know someone named Caroline do you? She goes to Hammel.” He was curious if she knew anyone he knew at Hammel. He didn’t have a lot of friends still there, really just his sister and Shapiro. Everyone else was graduated.

[Echo Waverly]

Echo studied Lani-Stranger-Man as he read her answer. Though she was perfectly sure that she'd got it right, she wondered if he'd try to say she didn't get it right. Because adults were like that sometimes--they liked to say she was wrong when she really was right.

She stared at him, wondering what had made him uncomfortable--because she was pretty sure he'd been uncomfortable for a moment at least, but then he smiled. And said she was a wise girl. Echo grinned and nodded in agreement. Yeah, she was pretty sure that she was pretty wise. At least most of the time. Despite this distraction, she kept Lani-Stranger-Man's moment of uncomfortable-ness tucked away in her memory, for further thought later on, and put a star next to the answer she'd written to remind herself later.

Echo thought for a moment, mind already wandering from the chameleon topic. "You should show me how to use your power sometime," she wrote, before giving him a tentative look. She wasn't quite sure how he'd react to the proposition, but she kind've hoped he would agree. It'd be better if he showed her how to use it than if someone else did, she was pretty sure.

Caroline... Echo shrugged at the name. She was bad with names, they were hard to remember, and so she didn't usually bother to unless it was someone she decided to like. They got nicknames, instead, so maybe this "Caroline" was one of her many nicknamed people. "Is that your girlfriend?" she wrote with a grin.

[Lani Hunter]

It was a problem that a lot of adult had. They dismissed children because they didn’t think that they understood, and yet they were the ones that saw the most and knew the most. Lani honestly wished he hadn’t grown up as quickly as he had, but he’d had a duty to perform and well the outcome had outweighed the cost. Imagination was the gift of the young that adults lost. Lani could call himself a realist, but in more plain words he was a cynic. He didn’t believe in the goodness of people, but for some reason, one he didn’t know how to explain, children had always seemed good to him. Even when he was a child he stood up for bullied children and now he wanted to help, even if he had no capacity to do so. Children were kind until someone showed them how to be cruel.

Seeing her smile, Lani couldn’t help but let a real one out of his own. She was clever, but it seemed like not many people told her so, maybe it was the writing, they took it as her being slow. But Lani didn’t think that was the case at all. She was thoughtful and didn’t jump to conclusions. Even as she turned the image back on him he wondered if he could still grow as well. Lani was plenty clever, plenty sly, and more than a little inquisitive. Those weren’t things that bothered him, being a thief didn’t bother him, but hurting people did. He hadn’t always done the right thing when he needed his quota for his boss and he’d done his best to protect people but only gotten them worse in their graves. Maybe she was right. Being suspicious of everyone was exhausting and it didn’t make for relaxing conversations.

There was a major block there. And that block came in the form of an attractive redhead. Odion had abandoned him, Lani had tried to do something good for him and Odion had erased him. Erased. Odion was the one person Lani thought he could really trust and he’d been burned. Lani wasn’t sure he wanted to trust anyone anymore, not even Odion. He looked down at her page when she looked up at him and he felt a nervous squirming in his gut. His power was dangerous, he might hurt her. But… “It’s a dangerous power… It deserves respect.” For a moment he wasn’t sure if he was consciously making those words or if he was writing them from his deep subconsciousness to his aware mind. Finally after a moment of debate, “I would rather I teach you that than someone else.” After he’d written it he had the nagging though, had he made the right decision? Well, he wanted to help, and he’d been tossing around the idea of training, maybe this was his final test.

Lani looked to see what she’d written and for a moment stared stunned then broke into laughter. He covered his mouth in an attempt to stifle it as he got a hash ‘Shh!’ from a few shelves down. He shook his head rapidly, dispelling the idea. Recovering to a slight chuckle, Lani wore a broad smile and shook his head at her. “No, she’s my sister.” His eyes were bright with humor, he didn’t take offense, it wasn’t, after all, an outlandish assumption to make.

[Echo Waverly]

Echo brightened as Lani-Stranger-Man agreed to teach her. She'd half expected him to refuse, especially after the comment he made about it being a dangerous power. A lot of powers are dangerous, she wrote. If I don't learn how to use them right they'll always be. She glanced at him and shrugged. Sure, she was using one of the many things she disliked about her power to make this point (namely, the fact she had to learn so many stupid powers) but whatever worked. But he'd agreed to help her anyway, so maybe it didn't matter.

Her eyes went wide when he started laughing. Laughing in a library. That was bad behavior, definitely. Even he had to know that. Other people shh'd him, and she tapped her pencil against her mouth, shaking her head and narrowing her eyes as she did so. People who didn't follow rules were exactly why the world was a scary place.

Then he was writing an explanation. She peered at it, then made a grimacing face somewhere between a smile and a frown. She'd been wrong, which wasn't something to be happy about, but it was kinda funny. After a moment, however, she gave up and grinned faintly. Do you have a lot of family?

It would be weird if he did. It was just weird to have siblings. She was glad she didn't have any-- they would have been annoying, she was pretty sure. Kids at school were annoying enough. Imagine having to live with them!

[Lani Hunter]

It was probably a bad idea, but well Lani did know a thing or two about controlling a wayward power, it might also be a good idea to chat with Adrianna so he could understand the girl's power a little better. Lani nodded, well at least she understood that. “It makes learning new powers more important,” Lani agreed, “Its a lot of responsibility to know every power, but maybe having learned enough you will find control for powers you've never seen before.” The hardest thing was perhaps that with a power like this it wasn't possible to learn all of the powers, there were just far too many for that to be a feasible task and so it was better to experience what she could and learn from those experiences once she got a better grasp on her power. The telekinetic didn't know if it was possible but perhaps she could learn to block out certain powers that she felt.

The little girl's look of disapproval did nothing to assist Lani to stop laughing. He covered his mouth and waved a hand at the woman glaring at him from down an aisle. 'Sorry' he mouthed at the woman who rolled her eyes and went back to her book with a clear sense of disdain. Lani enjoyed being that person who broke the rules. She couldn't possibly know that but Lani's impish grin gave away a bit of his nature. He didn't like rules, he was a renegade in his own right when it came to life. He was not likely to feel bad about disturbing people, he'd never apologized for all of the hell he'd put some people through, well if someone's version of hell was losing an expensive item, well then Lani felt he had justified reasons. No one had need for things but the way people acted made it seem like it was their life he was robbing them of.

There was an air of wickedness in his smile as he saw her expression. He wasn't sure if she was more embarrassed or if she would think it was funny. Lani thought it was hilarious. Seeing the two of them together no one would ever mistake them for anything but siblings. Not only did they look alike but they teased and annoyed like any other siblings. Caroline meant the word to Lani and he loved her and would destroy anyone who tried to hurt her, but he was her older brother and annoying her was part of his job description. She was just as good at getting back at him too. Better, in fact, which was a terrifying idea for the telekinetic. “Just me and my sister and mom and dad,” he replied moving the pen, a smile on his face, “You?”

The bond between siblings was a special one, one that was perplexing even to other siblings. Only siblings could squabble like it was the end of the world over some toy and then the next moment be punching the lights out of someone who teased their sibling. Lord knew that Lani was not one to take kindly to people bothering his sister. All she had to say was that someone was bothering her and Lani'd be there in a heartbeat. Back before Caroline came to Hammel she'd gone to the same schools that Lani had (much to the relief of their teachers, she had much better behavior than her brother). Lani had a reputation and Caroline would only have threaten to call Lani and any bullying or teasing would stop. It had taken a long time for Lani to gather a reputation and while he didn't always win his fights he was clever and got back in other ways. No one wanted to be on the thief’s bad side. And a surefire way of doing that was messing with his sister. “How long have you been at Hammel?” he asked curiously.