For lastvoyages: Spam for Greenhouse

[can_has_vodka]

 [A pair of Rhode Island Red chickens in bright blue cloth diapers march around the floor of the greenhouse. Arkady sits just under the rotunda in Lotus. The lights are dimmed to night-cycle, but soft purple light emanates--from her, for she is deep in meditation, her mind expanded to take in the overwhelming panorama of possible futures and worlds spread ahead of them. On the Barge, there have been so many possibilities that predicting the future is almost impossible, but that is no excuse to miss practice. She loves the changes to the greenhouse, and though she can't quite enjoy them in her current state, she's happy enough that they will be there when she opens her eyes.]

[She senses the minds on the Deck and withdraws slightly, dodging away from investigating their thoughts. She gets lonely sometimes, stuck within the confines of his own mind, but it is a small price to pay for the opportunities here.]

Comments

[wedonot]

[Charles hadn't honestly been expecting much telepathic contact on the Barge - or anywhere, really - until he'd run into Po, and so while hanging out on deck, the contact catches him a little off guard.

But instead of shying away from it, he nudges back slightly, not really reading Arkady's mind so much as just acknowledging that he'd sensed hers and sending a sort of confused 'Hello?' her way.]

[can_has_vodka]

[Arkady's eyes pop open, and she lets out a delighted squeak which startles the chickens. The psychic contact gets a slightly puppyish tinge of enthusiasm.]

Hello! Oh hello! Who are you?

[On the heels of that a small package of information: her name, appearance, and a brief view from inside the Greenhouse--which inexplicably involves chickens.]

[wedonot]

[Charles lets out a little surprised laugh at that, because most of his other contact with telepaths has been... a lot less friendly, honestly, so the enthusiasm is unexpected, but appreciated.]

Charles Xavier. I'm a warden. [And he sends back his own information, what he looks like and where he is, sort of distantly wondering about the chickens in a way she can likely pick up on the trail end of his thoughts.]

[can_has_vodka]

Me too! Oh this is lovely. Hello Charles. [There is a tinge of relief in her psychic tone. Since coming here she spoke once each mentally with Narvin, the Doctor and the TARDIS, and been in Lua's mind, but that has been it. Her native state is a semi-hivemind with at least ten other individuals.]

[Soft giggling down the link as she focuses briefly on the chickens. They needed a walk.]

I've been here perhaps eight months. The people are a mix of lovely and terrible. More lovely than terrible, though. Would you like to come in out of the cold?

SORRY THIS IS SO LATE BB <33

[wedonot]

If you wouldn't mind some company. [He can sense the relief and is curious about it, and since the only other telepath he'd really come in contact with before coming to the Barge was sort of looking to get him killed if it came down to it, he was interested in getting to know other people with the ability.

And once he's wheeled himself into the greenhouse, he decides to ask out loud, just in case:]

"Would you prefer to continue verbally or telepathically?"

[See, look at him growing up, asking permission.]

worth the wait, NP. :)

[can_has_vodka]

I'd love some. [The purple glow flickers slightly and then fades as she stands up and opens her eyes. Inside the greenhouse it is warm and dim, and smells of the jasmine vines that have been planted atop each pillar.]

"If it's all the same to you I'd prefer the telepathic. The truth is that I've been alone in my mind for a bit too long. The Gallifreyans are superb telepaths, but they're intensely private."

[The rooster wanders up to Charles and peers at him boldly.]

[wedonot]

[Charles nods and laughs a little at the rooster.] "Hello."

[And switching back over to telepathy:]

I'm certainly alright with it, it's not often I get to talk with someone like this. I'd only ever met one telepath before coming here, and she wasn't exactly friendly.

[can_has_vodka]

[Bok. The rooster wanders off again to inspect his temporary domain; apparently Charles has passed muster.]

Really? Oh, that's terrible. [Her mental contact offers a small wealth of connected information/imagery/emotional impressions beneath the chatter. What comes across is not pity, but rather the desire to provide a much friendlier alternative. She's a gently balanced idealist, and doesn't think her fellow telepaths should go lonely unless they're too negative to connect with.]

I was born with my eleven clanmates, and we've never without each other since then. Except when one of us is shielding for privacy's sake. [There's a brief impression of a mindspace like a large and slightly chattery room.]

So it's a bit opposite here from what I am used to.

[wedonot]

[Charles's own mind is immediately fairly receptive, and while he might not have as much experience as Arkady, he's still got fairly good control when it comes to filtering what he's letting her know, instead of just a constant stream of thoughts and images. He's still careful not to let her in too far, expose himself too much, but he's more relaxed by the other warden's attitude.]

That seems like a difficult thing to adjust to. [He knows from experience it can be lonely not really being able to communicate with people this way, but it isn't like he's ever had that experience to then miss when he left home.] Are they your siblings or just 'clanmates'?

[can_has_vodka]

[She doesn't push. In her earlier days, when she was addled, she would have been stumbling over boundaries now and again. For some reason this translates as relief about "that knock on the head".]

The truth is that we do not know. We were all born at the same moment in a teeny village in South England. We were always linked in our minds, and we look similar to one another. [Brief flash of twelve figures, all in their early twenties, all pale and purple-eyed and dark-haired save for the one blonde Jamaican woman. There is a faint purple light around them.]

It could have been a spontaneous group mutation, but what are the odds?

[wedonot]

Not very high, unless there was some other factor in the works. Like radiation, or something else entirely. [He sort of passively passes along information she probably knows already if she's been paying attention to the network: he's a professor of human genetics and evolution, and a mutant.]

Is that sort of thing common, in your world? Mutation?

[can_has_vodka]

It would be nice if there were more than just our clan. But we have never encountered anyone else until I came here. [More images of purple light, intermixed with cracked paving and a Thames that climbs up the hills of London.]

Our lives are spent contributing to Whitechapel without letting on to most that we have powers at all. We don't want to cause a panic.

[wedonot]

I can understand that. Anonymity is the first line of defense for people like us. [He carefully lets some other images slip to show her what he means: Raven changing from her 'normal' blonde appearance to her natural blue form, the moment when Hank took his shoes off to first display his feet, Angel's wings, Erik lifting the metal wine cooler with a snap of his fingers.]

I don't think my society's quite ready to know we exist. There have been some who have been quite receptive to it, but others have felt we're a threat.

[can_has_vodka]

[She watches the torrent of images with delight. To her this is another wonder of the multiverse--all of humanity developing one lineage as a time toward people rather like her own.]

We have Alice. She's wonderful. But we have to let people in carefully. It's not like here. I have never been able to live "out" before. In a way it is a good trade for being without the other eleven. And I can start to get more clues on how we may coexist with humans.

[wedonot]

I hadn't really thought of it that way before, honestly. [At least not consciously. He's still pretty focused on trying to make sure people aren't uncomfortable with him and what he's capable of, generally waiting to give them the details if they haven't been paying attention to the things he's been saying on the network.] I mean, I haven't been hiding, but there are still people who seem uncomfortable about the idea of people being able to do what we can. It is still freer than I've ever been able to be before.

[He's almost quiet for a moment, thoughts shifting slightly.] Sometimes I do wonder if this place is a good environment to show people- [And here there's a very heavy undercurrent of Erik, although it holds true for Arthur and a few others, too.] That we can coexist with each other.

[can_has_vodka]

It is an interesting little community. Because it is small and close one cannot do something without seeing the way its effects circle back. Unless one is very good at rationalizing, but that doesn't seem to last very wrong here.

As for the rest, well, I mostly have to avoid startling people with where I teleport, and get permission to enter private areas. My mind, well...I try to stay out of people's thoughts but again, lonely.

[wedonot]

Well, if you're ever in need of someone to talk with, I certainly don't mind it.

[can_has_vodka]

I would like that very much. Besides, perhaps we can teach each other a bit. [She gathers her chickens into her lap and they settle in, blinking sleepily.]