Nothing that I do is ever good enough

[soultospare]

Who| Megan Gwynn & YOU!!!
What| Exploring the Tribute Center
Where| Various locations in the Tribute Center & surrounding.
When| Throughout the week, whenever the curfew is not in effect.
Warnings/Notes| N/A

1 ; Training Center

If this place was for real (and it was looking increasingly like it was), Megan was going to need to put in some practice when it came to self-defense. X-Men didn't kill (except for demons, and the proper term in that case was vanquish) but she wanted to be ready to defend herself, just in case. Years of combat training would aid her, of course, but without her powers as a back up, she was worried she wouldn't be able to handle herself in a pinch. After all, everything she relied on fell back on her mutant abilities. Without those, she felt like she would be an easy target.

So she arrived at the training center ready to work on all that. Her first order of business was to get the lay of the land. From there she would decide what to do.

2 ; The Roof

The sunset over the mountains was brilliantly beautiful, but Megan wasn't paying it any mind. Instead she sat brooding on the roof. Or rather, she sat pouting. Bright pink fairies aren't exactly the brooding types. Regardless, she sat on the rooftop overlooking the busy Capitol down below, a pensive look on her face. She wondered, vaguely, what would happen if she jumped off the ledge. What good were those wings of hers if she wasn't able to fly?

3 ; You pick!

Comments

[celebrityskinned]

Venus is in the training center again. Her life seems to have narrowed itself down to a few locations: the gym, her bedroom and the sole frozen yogurt place she still graces with her presence before racking up a few more thousand on her ever-mounting credit card debt at the 'strip' of clothing boutiques. Gone are her other interests, kidnapped, she feels, by people she cares for dying and taking those hobbies with them. There's no ransom, no letter from cut magazines - she doesn't know when or if she'll ever get that ability to enjoy things back.

But the gym was hers, is hers, is the place she enjoyed before she met anyone she misses. As such, she's there at this strange hour, doing chin-ups first underhand, then overhand when Megan comes in. Her maimed face is no prettier for being crunched up in an expression of exertion.

"Nice wings." She drops down to the mat, breathing a bit heavily. "They match your hair."

She wonders if the new girl came in like that or if it was the inspired idea of one of the Stylists.

[soultospare]

Maimed or not, Megan doesn't recognize Venus at all. Even if she'd been in her original body and not this new humanized one, she probably wouldn't have either. It's nothing personal, rather, she's more into British soaps than crappy American reality TV. She watches as Venus drops to the ground and can't help but feel somewhat intimidated by the bigger, stronger, older woman. It's not really that Venus is so imposing so much as the whole situation is overwhelming and frustrating and generally scary.

"Thanks," Megan says, and her wings move slightly without her really thinking about them. "It's a good thing I like pink."

She smiles, or tries to anyway. "I like your... erm..." She stares at Venus, grasping at straws for a compliment to pay in return. "...Chin-up technique."

[celebrityskinned]

"Don't let your Stylist railroad you into only pink though. They totally will. Once they get a safe idea they just rehash it forever." She drops to the mat and stretches her legs.

"I have great chin-up technique." Venus cocks her head to the side and grins, trying to let Megan know that even though the compliment's obviously scraped together, Venus is going to take it in the best possible spirit. Her smile's much more easy than Megan's, not because she feels it but because Venus long learned to detach her face from anything going on in her head. "What's your name?"

[soultospare]

Megan laughs melodically. "Pink sounds brilliant compared to the blue and yellow spandex I've been dashing around in for the last few years. It's more in my color scheme at least."

Not that she didn't appreciate the advice. It was solid advice. And she could always use the reminder to stick up for herself sometimes.

"I'm Megan. Sorry for interrupting your work out. It's my first time in here and I wanted to take it all in. It's quite an arrangement they've got, isn't it? I've seen nicer, but this isn't half bad. Too bad it's meant to teach us how to kill each other though. I still can't get over that bit, not really. I keep going to sleep and hoping that I'll wake up, safe and tucked away in my own room, you know? It's the worst, it really is." Sorry if she's talking a mile a minute, Venus. It's kind of her thing. Sorry too if her Welsh accent makes it all a jumble of sing-songy syllables.

[celebrityskinned]

Thankfully, accent or not, Venus is very good at politely nodding and smiling without letting her expression glaze over too much. And she manages to hold onto her first thought throughout the babble long enough to ask it at the end.

"Spandex? You're another cape?" She supposes she was about Megan's age when she started, working C-list wannabe teams in Los Angeles. "What's your codename?"

(With Megan's chattering, Venus is already entertaining the suspicion that the girl's a speedster, not just someone with wings and strange eyes.)

[soultospare]

There was no use keeping up a secret identity when she had bright pink hair and wings, especially now that she was in some sort of off the wall alternate reality. So instead, she did her best to carry an air of authority as she spoke, posing a bit as she did. "It's Pixie, natch."

[celebrityskinned]

"Cute!" Venus' smile doesn't even falter as she finds a good explanation for having no idea who Pixie is. "We might be from different timelines or worlds, though. I'm not super familiar."

An air of authority looks a little bit silly coming from a girl with bright pink hair and such a peppy attitude, but Venus feels where the effort's coming from.

"Honestly, you're handling all this way better than like, eighty percent of the people who get tossed into here." Even with the babbling and insistence that this is the worst. "The last guy I saw was a total mess."

[soultospare]

"I am?" She's honestly surprised, seeing that she's not exactly the most mature of individuals. But then again, she's been known to pull herself up by her bootstraps when need be. She's Welsh, after all. "I guess once you've been through hell, literally, everything else is a piece of cake, right?"

[celebrityskinned]

"Hell, huh? That's not a place I been. Can't say I'm jealous of you." There's something comforting about being able to talk to another super, about being able to just drop casual references to the absurdity that makes up their lives. It's an instant common ground, unspoken but appreciated.

"Yeah, he was shoving food in his mouth like he was in a competition to be the world's fattest man."

2

[biomechatronic]

Dennett normally comes up here when he can't sleep, but the curfew's changed all that. But he's grown too attached to the quiet and distance up here, so he slips out as the sun begins to sink (because Dennett Norton is the kind of guy who doesn't even exceed posted speed limits, not even the 15 mph ones) and finds his way up here.

Cities are cities, after all, and it makes him homesick (but just not heartsick) for Detroit.

He's gotten used to sharing the space--everyone deserves comfort from this city. And most of the time he doesn't interrupt, but..well...wings. Wings?

"Excuse me, but...are those real?"

Dennett clearly did not achieve high marks in tact.

[soultospare]

"Huh?" She was snatched from her moment of contemplation at the sound of the man's voice, black eyes slowly batting as she looked back at him. After a second or two spend staring at him, though, she managed a semi-friendly smile. She was used to being stared at, used to questions about who and what she was, even if it wasn't handled in the most tactful way.

"Of course they're real. See?" Her wings fluttered, sunset reflecting on them and making them sparkle. "See? Totally real and totally normal."

[biomechatronic]

He feels a little bad: his curiosity rides roughshod over manners sometimes. Most of the time.

"That's...astonishing!" He snatches his hand back before touching them. "They're organic? You've had them your whole life?" He gives a nervous laugh. "They're...not normal where I'm from." However, cybernetics are, for whatever that's worth.

[soultospare]

Megan shook her head, looking a bit sheepish. She enjoyed being the center of attention, but being seen as an oddity can be trying sometimes. As least the man was being polite about it and not imposing too much. That said, she did flinch away when he looked as though he might touch her.

"I wasn't born with them, actually. My mutant powers didn't manifest until I was thirteen. That's when I grew my wings."

[biomechatronic]

Right, right, Dennett, look with your eyes, not your hands. He does manage to look a little abashed as he pulls his hand back.

"Mutant. Like the tortoise? Some sewer incident?" That had been a trip. At least the wings looked, well, not like a human sized bipedal tortoise.

[soultospare]

"What tortoise?" Her face contorted a little, confusion abounding. If there were other mutants here, she desperately needed to meet them, even if they weren't the X-Men. "There wasn't an accident. At least not one in a sewer. I was born with the X-gene. I inherited it from my father. But it lies dormant until puberty, so I looked rather normal until then."

Or so she liked to tell herself.

[biomechatronic]

"The tortoise. You haven't seen him? He's taller than I am, and well...green, and with a big shell...and...." And the more Dennett talks about it the more it sounds like crazy talk. He HAD seen him, hadn't he? He'd even asked him if he was an hallucination. "He was real, I swear."

"Mutant gene from what?" Nuclear fallout? Did he miss something?

[soultospare]

"If there's another mutant around though, I'd sure like to meet him." Megan shook her head, though she was clearly intrigued. And as for her genetics, well... "I don't think anyone's figured that bit out yet. But there's a number of us mutants, all with the same genetic marker. There used to be more of us, but now there's about two hundred or so in the entire world."

2 | ahhh I hope this is okay, sorry for being so late

[reassures]

Finding people on the rooftop is certainly nothing new - Nill loves the plants, loves the wind and how high it is, and she's up there frequently. It's not quite as common to find someone who looks so unhappy, but even that's not new.

Neither of those things are terribly important at the moment though, because the girl sitting there has wings like she's never seen before, and when Nill steps out onto the rooftop she can't help but stare a little. She's known so few people with wings in her life, but even those had nothing like what Megan has. They're beautiful.

When Nill finally wanders over to her she already has a message written out on her notepad, whih she holds up for Megan to see once she's taken notice of her, her own feathery wings fluttering slightly.

hello.
what's your name?

this is lovely c:

[soultospare]

It wasn't everyday that Megan encountered other winged people. There was Warren, of course, from back home, and Jay, before Jay died, but even in her world of superpowered folk, Megan was more or less alone. So her heart just about skipped a beat when she saw Nill approaching from across the rooftop. Up there, in the solitude, with the wind blowing and the sun painting the sky all orange and red, Nill almost looked like an angel. Surely, between the two of them, they must have looked like something out of a picture book.

It took her a moment to realize though that Nill had a note written out for her to read. Megan laughed, a little sheepish, unable to stop herself. "My name's Megan. What's yours?"

[reassures]

Nill looks a little sheepish in return, but the smile quickly spreading across her face is very genuine, even if it seems a little nervous. Not because of Megan, but the only winged people Nill had ever met were boys. A girl had never happened. The gender doesn't make a huge difference, but Nill doesn't want to mess it up, or seem over eager, or anything like that.

Despite that her reply is written very quickly.

my name is Nill.
it's nice to meet you.
did you just get here?

[soultospare]

Megan nods, cheer spreading over her with each passing moment. "Uh-huh. I mean, it's been a couple of days now. I'm still not sure I understand everything, or really anything about this place, but I'm trying to wrap my head around it all."

Realizing that she may be coming across as a chatterbox, she purposely shuts her mouth for a second or two before adding. "I like your wings. They're lovely."

[reassures]

Nill has almost never minded talkative people, and she certainly doesn't now. If anything, she seems delighted by the conversation, though she seems no less delighted when she catches herself. There are so many mixed feelings when it comes to her wings, but with a compliment from someone as pretty as Megan is, Nill blushes, her wings fluttering behind her, expression sheepish.

thank you.
you're really beautiful.
do you have any questions about this place?
I might be able to help.

[soultospare]

"Thank you. So are you, truly." It's Megan's turn to blush, though hers is more of a delighted glow than a look of embarrassment. She loves compliments, no matter the source, and coming from Nill it seems all the more genuine.

"Can you really?" Her black eyes lit up, an expression of hope taking over. "You see, I've only just arrived a few days ago and I've hardly gotten used to anything in this place. I hear it's called Panem and that we're meant to battle each other, but I'm kind of not into that level of violence myself, so I'm hoping there's some way I could get out of here. But they've clipped my wings somehow. I was going to fly away, back to California to find my friends and save everyone, but I can't even get off the ground. It's all very depressing, believe me."

After getting all of that off her chest, she lets out a sigh, turning back to face Nill. "I don't suppose you know how to get to the San Francisco Bay from here, do you? Because that would really help right now."

[reassures]

Her expression is nothing but sympathetic, though the slight blush still high on her cheeks has yet to fade. So she could really fly? Even with wings as small as hers?

(She shouldn't be jealous. Depending on the kind of world Megan comes from, she would have had a much harder time of hiding any potential abnormalities from others than Nill did. Being jealous is dumb, and selfish, but she is, even if only a little. At least Megan's wings had been good for something once upon a time that wasn't just attracting sick people.)

As if to double check before she actually writes anything down, Nill looks up at the sky, despite the fact that it's still too bright out to actually make out what she's looking for. Even so, she writes a response for her.

this should still be earth. the stars are the same.
it's too warm for this to be canada. we might be in america.
even if we are I don't think we're near the ocean.

[soultospare]

"It's definitely not Wales, that much I can tell you. That's where I'm from. Wales." Megan's eyes trained skyward too, then to the red streaked setting sun in the west. This world wasn't like anyplace she knew intimately. She didn't know the flyover states all that well. "So it's true, then? This place is like an alternate version of actual Earth?"