Emotions running wild [open]

[Anette Blackwood]

Anette slipped out of her dorm without waking her other dorm-mates and padded down the hall to the students lounge. She couldn’t sleep and she was thinking hard. She had gotten a concerning letter from her mother a day before about her “father.” Apparently, he had just disappeared. She didn’t know what that meant, but she did know that she couldn’t sleep with this weighing heavily in her head.

She sat on one of the many couches and was glad it was empty, because she broke down crying again. She cried here more than she did at home, but maybe that was because she actually had privacy of which to do so. She wiped away her tears when her phone rang. It was Cally, her best friend who lived in Washington. She had known her since first grade.

Hey girly

Anette turned off her phone and looked around the room. There were a few bookcases filled with some books, so she wouldn’t have to sneak down to the library and nice big windows in which the moon was shining. She picked up one of the books and tried to get her mind off of her “father’s” disappearance. She didn’t know why she cared anyway and that made her put the book down in frustration. Anette couldn’t concentrate and laid her head back with her eyes closed.

[Clarity Ryder]

The day had been hectic for Clarity. She didn't even want to think about it. On top of everything, she couldn't sleep because her mind was screaming, New place, strange place, don't fall asleep! Running about, signing up for clubs, getting her schedule and memorizing it; the busy day ran through her mind despite her best efforts. Shoving herself out of bed, she slipped on her sneakers and left the room as silently as possible.


Not wanting to wake her roommates, she decided to wash her face in the main bathroom and pace in the student lounge, rather than pace around the area in front of her bed. When she got there, however, there was already someone on the couch that Clarity liked best for comfort. A girl. By the time her mind caught up with the thought, there was no turning around and heading back to the room, so she stood there awkwardly for a moment before sitting on the floor in front of the couch. "No sleeping here, huh?"

[Anette Blackwood]

Anette opened up her eyes to a girl. “Well, I wasn’t really sleeping,” she said rubbing her eyes of the tears that had kept falling. She didn’t want anyone to be privy to what she was going through right then and there. She could hear rain hitting the top of the roof. Even though she shouldn’t have heard it, she knew from within her soul.

“What are you doing up so late?” she asked sitting up. She stretched and looked at the girl again.

[Clarity Ryder]

Clarity nodded, then moved to make herself more comfortable, leaning sideways against the front of the couch. She understood. It would appear that other people had problems around here as well--aside from the whole socially outcast mutant-I-mean-meta-human thing. There was nothing she could say about herself, seeing how she didn't have all that much tragedy in her life. Well, maybe a little.

There was a pause as Clarity attempted to think. Then, she stammered out a response. "I--that is, um. I have some... issues getting to sleep lately, which totally doesn't make any sense, but I guess at the same time it does and... I just said too much, didn't I?" Her face turned red, and she was grateful for the darkness. Her dark hair was in a low ponytail, and she couldn't hide her face in it, but she did make it appear as if the floor suddenly held the secret to all powers in the universe.

[Anette Blackwood]

Anette’s laugh pierced the silence. “I don’t think you did. You just can’t sleep, I understand that. It’s a new place. It’s a strange new place I’ll have to admit.” She slid to the ground to sit next to the girl. “My name is Anette Blackwood; I came here a couple of weeks ago.”

She held out her hand and waited for the girl to take it. “What’s your name?”

[Clarity Ryder]

Clarity flinched slightly when the other girl laughed, but released a bit of silent laughter at her own expense. How strange she must sound to someone else. She was just being overcautious again, she supposed. She nodded the tiniest bit when the girl spoke of a new, strange place. That was something that yes, someone else did understand.

Clarity looked up in shock when the girl slid down to sit next to her. Nobody ever really willingly spoke to her. She had always been the strangest thing in her small Idaho town, and everyone agreed not to speak to her unless absolutely necessary. So weird; I'm not as strange here. She thought, then took Anette's waiting hand. "I'm Clarity. Ryder. I just got here a few days ago." She smiled. "Nice to know you, Anette." She released her hand. Then, she tilted her head to the side, thinking. "What are..." She thought differently and rephrased her question. "Would it be rude of me to ask...?" Now she didn't know what, exactly, she wanted to ask. Powers, or why Anette was also here at-- what time was it, anyway? Late, that was for sure.

[Anette Blackwood]

Anette tilted her head back and smiled with closed eyes. “Oh, I just couldn’t sleep. My mind won’t help me rest…it’s a rather stupid reason. I don’t usually sneak out. What about you? I realize that it’s a new place…And I’ve only been here for a couple of days too.”

She sighed and sat back. “So, what’s your power?”

[Clarity Ryder]

Clarity sighed, and nodded. "I've been... Excited, I guess? That, and it's really hard for me to adjust to sleeping somewhere new. You wouldn't believe how... freaked out I get when I try to sleep in, like, a hotel or something. I think I've run through an entire vacation with an hour or so of sleep each day."

In response to the question about powers, Clarity hesitated. What did they call her again? "I'm a... I have... Cairo... C-cryokinesis. Or something. I have some wierd power over ice. You want popsicles? Get paper cups, some juice, and some tounge depressers, and there you have it. I can always make ice sculptures, too. I just need to figure out how to, you know, actually use my power." She laughed. "So... What's yours?" She raised an eyebrow.

[Anette Blackwood]

Annette laughed. “I control the weather, I think it’s useless but it’s amazing what I see when my emotions change the way they do.” She turned her blue eyes out the window and started thinking deeply. Perhaps too deeply, she was trying to channel her emtoins out into the coming storm. But it just wouldn’t work for her, for tonight anyway. Maybe her emotions weren’t as bad as she thought they were.

“So, how did you find out you had a power then?”

[Clarity Ryder]

"Wow." Clarity said softly. "I would personally like that ability over mine. I'm always some wrong temperature." She laughed very softly. Then, when Annette asked what way she had found that she had her power, she grew quiet. Clarity didn't like to remember that day--that moment, even, the rest of the day was fine compared to... it.

"Okay." She said, taking a deep breath to keep from hyperventilating. The temperature was beginning to drop. "I'll tell you, but you have to not... say anything. To anyone. And then you have to promise to tell me what happened to you." She looked Annette in the eye. Those eyes were amazingly bright, especially compared to Clarity's. She held out a pinky. If it was childish, she didn't care. She just wanted some physical link to the promise. "Promise me those things, and I'll tell you about that day."

[Anette Blackwood]

Anette laughed and nodded. “Yeah, it-“ The girl had grown quiet. Silence sometimes scared Anette, as if some big ugly monster was going to jump out and bite her. Her imagination overworked itself and she had to force herself back to the present in order to catch what the girl was saying.

A secret? The little girl didn’t understand why Clarity wanted to keep it a secret, but this girl was trusting her with someone that obvious creeped her out or something, so she pull her small pinky around the older’s girls and nodded. “I’ll not tell a soul.” Unless it endangers your life, she added silently.

[Clarity Ryder]

Clarity;; ♥

Clarity tried to relax, although she failed, and so she wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging them to her chest as she began, keeping her voice from showing too much emotion. She closed her eyes to keep from thinking about the fact that she was actually telling someone what happened. "Well, I was upset. The day, no, the month, had been pretty stressful on all of us--that is, me, my sister, and my mom. It was pretty stupid, because now I don't even remember why I was so upset. Just that I was upset with my poor little sister for no real reason. Just a stupid teenage reason, actually." She was surprised to hear a small bitter laugh find its way out of her throat.

"Anyway" Clarity tried to get control of herself, as she could feel ice crystals forming in her hair. "My sister and I were fighting, and my mom decided to jump in and defend Hope, and it was just getting worse, and I got a headache, and I was starting to yell, because that's what you do when you get ganged up on, and then..." She took a shuddering breath, hating herself and her emotions for a brief moment, and then shrugged it off. "Well, it got very quiet, very fast. It's sort of hard to explain, but all of the sound just--cut off. My sister, my mom, even me. I seriously stopped breathing for a second. And then, my sister was screaming, and I was apologizing, because I knew that I had done... Something. I covered her arm in ice somehow."

Clarity opened her eyes, realizing that not only did she have one of her headaches again, but also that her eyelashes were frost-covered. She hadn't meant to do that. She leaned back and laughed. And laughed some more. She stopped, speaking between gasps. "Sorry, sorry--you must think I'm insane. It's just kind of funny. My powers haven't acted up much since then, and now I've gone and frosted us." She dusted Anette's shoulder off, smiling even at the cool wetness on her fingers.

[Anette Blackwood]

Anette watched her curl up in a tiny form and listened to her bitter voice as she retold the story. Her eyes went wide, it was very much like her story, losing a friend and it should’ve never happened like that. It seemed to her that she and Clarity were more alike than they both thought. The wind started to pick up outside, soon, she knew, rain would follow it.

She brushed off the ice on her head, smiling gently. She wondered how a girl older than her could be so broken. But, she supposed, she had a reason to be broken. “I don’t think you’re insane. In fact, you’re very sane. Your powers came out at the wrong time, mine did too. My best friend was caught up in a mini tornado after she had betrayed me.” She wasn’t proud of her little story, but it did make her feel better when she told Clarity, at least someone knew how she felt.

Anette wrapped her small arms around the frame of the older girl. Tears rolled down her own cheek and the rain pelted at the window, clouds getting darker until it was as black as a raven’s wing. No storm followed, just the wind and rain wanting to be noticed out the windows.

[Clarity Ryder]

Clarity;; ♥

The wind fought the windows, trying to make its way in to chill the girls further. Clarity fought tears, yawning to keep the sobs from coming. She cleared her throat quietly. "That sucks. That she betrayed you, I mean."

When the younger girl wrapped her arms around Clarity, she stiffened, then melted, just a bit. It was nice, having contact like this. She didn't realize how much she needed a hug until she actually got one. When was the last time she had been hugged, anyway? Just after her dad left. Had it already been so long? Clarity felt tears escape her eyes, and moved to return Anette's hug. It felt nice, and warm, compared to how cold she had been since her powers manifested. The other girl's skin was soft. Clarity sat there, crying with a girl she had just met not even an hour ago, although it felt like days, in the middle of the night, in a school for mut--Metas. Oh, yeah, her mother would be so. Proud. Bu then, around here, when her mother refused to believe these things existed, who cared what her mother thought?

[Anette Blackwood]

Anette laughed and gave the girl a huge smile. “Here we are, in the middle of the night, hugging and crying when we could be playing pool or something.” She was determined to get Clarity feeling better and to stop the rain outside. It did stop and she was glad. She gave the girl one more squeeze and then got up to look around the lounge. Normally filled with talking students hiding out from home work seeking teachers, it was deserted, leaving the pool table and foos table open

“What do you want to play first?” she asked rocking back and forth on her heels.