fandomhigh | Library, Sunday 07/01

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Library, Sunday 07/01

Raven was finding it hard to concentrate on her library duties that morning since she was preoccupied with the showcase that afternoon instead. She tried to work on both, moving through the stacks and tidying up the shelves while singing her song under her breath. The books at least were fairly quiet today, though all the books by Canadian authors had migrated to one corner of the library for a party.

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She'd seen the notice that the library was looking for new aides, so she was making a mental note to find Sholeh and tell her.

As you do.

If he's there.

Off to run some errands soon, but should be around later in the afternoon.

The weather today had looked like a marked improvement on yesterday's, and Evan was going to take that as a sign that it was safe to go out and explore, today. His first stop, naturally, was the library. And on the way in, he'd stopped and taken a good, long, thoughtful look at the notice that they were hiring in here.

Once he was actually inside, he stopped short and just stared, wide-eyed.

"Oh, this is way more impressive than the community library back in my hometown."

Really, not even the Jean Grey School library could compete. The school had a track record for blowing up or trying to attack people, so it wasn't really like the books had a long shelf-life, so to speak.

Raven emerged from the stacks, humming, and looked up to greet the visitor. Her voice caught in surprise, and for a fleeting moment she wondered if Fandom was entertaining the new visitors to the island by transforming people into children already. But no, but while the markings on Evan's face were the same as Jono's, his skin coloring was different, his hair was different, even his voice was different. Besides, she'd met wee Jono, and she knew he looked nothing like this.

"Hello," she said. "I am sorry that I looked surprised. You look very much like someone I know. Welcome to the library. I am Raven, and I would be happy to assist you."

Evan's own breath had caught at about the same time Raven's voice had. Mostly because it was a reaction that he'd gotten before. It just didn't generally turn around and become a pleasant situation again so quickly.

And so he offered her a tiny, kind of wary sort of smile.

"You'd be surprised at how often I get that reaction," he replied, trying to sound casual. "But I'm not who it is you think I look like, trust me. I'm Evan. Evan Sabahnur. I'm... new here, and I wanted to just get a look at the library. I'll probably spend a lot of time here, looking at books."

Actually, who he thought she was comparing him to wasn't even who she was comparing him to. Go figure, right?

"You are welcome to spend as much time here as you wish," Raven said pleasantly. "The only doors you may not enter are the ones to the librarian's office and to Special Collections. You will need a teacher's note for Special Collections. But otherwise you may browse all you wish, and sit and read or check out books to bring back to your room."

She did, however, clue in to the not talking about the same person he resembled. "You look like my boy-...you look like my good friend Jono," she said to clarify while making a note to tell Jono this evening about Evan so he wouldn't be too alarmed if he ran into him. She traced a fingertip over her cheek. "He has the same markings as you."

She gave Evan a reassuring smile, guessing he might share some of Jono's struggles with his appearance. "Any other person you might resemble does not matter. It is your own words and deeds that define you, not someone else's."

[Running out the door for errands -- back in a bit!]

"That's what my family always told me, too," Evan replied, even as he raised a hand to idly brush his fingers over one of the raised black lines across his cheeks. "That I'm whoever I make myself... that I can be anything I want to be."

He scuffed his toe against the floor, and then shrugged a little bit.

"I guess it's kind of a distinctive look, though."

[Sure thing!]

"Your family is wise then," Raven said, nodding. "Your face or your blood are not given to you by choice, but your path is your own to make. I know that all to well." She didn't resemble her father, at least not when she was in control of her emotions, but his blood ran strong in her veins.

"I hope I am not rude in asking this, but are you a mutant?" she said. "You need not fear answering here. Fandom is a safe haven for mutants. There are many here, some of them my dearest friends."

Evan hesitated for a moment, and then he nodded a little bit. There really wasn't any sense in lying about it. The answer was as plain as the markings on his face, after all.

"I am," he replied. "But I didn't know there were any of us around here... There's not exactly a wealth of us in the first place, you know?"

"Especially after M-day," Raven said sadly, trying to get a feel for where and when Evan might come from.

"There have been many mutants, teachers and students both, in Fandom, though some have moved on back to their own worlds," she went on. "I know the people of their worlds sometimes treat them cruelly, but that will not be the case here, as I said."

"Especially after that," Evan agreed, barely a murmur. He'd learned about M-Day through mutant history classes back at the Jean Grey School. And had learned even more distressingly of the massacre at Genosha, via a field trip to the ruins of the decimated city itself. It... didn't really feel like much of a 'sometimes' thing. "And... people really don't care about mutants, here? It's not going to turn into some kind of us against them... thing?"

"No," Raven said, sending a gentle pulse of comfort Evan's way as he confirmed knowledge of M-Day. "It will not. Fandom is not without dangers, and some of the students may be crude at times, but overall, this is a safe haven. There are other mutants here, and students like myself who have powers as well. There are those from other worlds and other times and people from worlds that have no magic or mutants or extraordinary beings. It is an interesting mix, but we live together as friends. Even family."

"Family," Evan echoed, and the anxiety that had been soothed away was replaced with a different sort of pang. He missed his parents... hadn't so much as heard from them in months. "It almost sounds too good to be true."

Which was something he would have been loathe to think, even a few months ago.

"I know," Raven said, her own bitter-sweet memories of arriving on the island coming to mind. "I came here with no family. But one of my teachers has become as a father to me, and the friends I have made -- the bonds I have with them are deeper than any true sibling. I hope that your experience here will be much the same."

She gave him a gentle smile. "I know that is a lot to take in, so soon after coming here. It may take time to adjust and to trust. But if you have any questions or anything I may help you with, I am happy to do so."

Evan tried a tiny smile on for size.

"It already sounds like a better school for me than my last one," he admitted softly. "I don't know if my Uncle Cluster would want me to stay here for too long, but if it's really as good as you say it is... maybe he'd let me. If I asked him, I mean."

"If you truly wish to stay, some of the teachers can be quite persuasive," Raven said, pleased with the smile, even a small one. "But that is not a concern for now. You have only just arrived, after all. And if your uncle visits at Parents Weekend, hopefully he will see how happy you are here."

Then, out of curiosity, she had to ask, "What was your school before this one? Was it for mutants such as yourself?" Knowing what most worlds such as Jono's were like, she knew his appearance unfortunately wouldn't let him fit in well at other schools.

"It was," Evan replied, nodding a little bit. "The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. It was all... classes by mutants, for mutants. And before that, I was going to school in Kansas. Just another little school. I was on the baseball team and everything, though."

It was weird, for all that he'd learned about the way baseline humans felt about mutants, he'd always been accepted far more easily back home in Kansas than he had been at the Jean Grey School.

Funny, that.

"Jean Grey School?" Raven said. "I have met her, briefly, both as a student here and as a member of the X-Men in Jono's world. Has she taken over the Xavier Institute? Or started her own school now?"

Evan was chewing on his lip for a minute while he tried to muddle out just how he'd answer that.

"It's... technically the Jean Grey Memorial School," he said, carefully. "Headmaster Logan started the school up again, I guess... It used to just be a bunch of ruins, but he decided that fighting all the time wasn't any sort of life for a bunch of kids, and he opened up the school again."

This had all been before Evan's time, barely. The school had only been open for a couple of weeks before he and Angel had become students.

Headmaster Logan? Headmaster?

"I see," she said slowly. "I am sorry to hear that, but glad that he reopened the school." Ruins?

"I have met Headmaster Logan as well, though he was not headmaster then," she said. "It does not entirely surprise me that it was he who opened the school again." Of all the X-Men he was the one she didn't still harbor some bitterness toward for abandoning Jono. At least he'd tried to find him. He'd cared.

Evan nodded a little.

"He's... a pretty good guy, I guess. I mean, he doesn't think that a bunch of kids should grow up to be soldiers."

But heroes... why not heroes? That's what Evan had been raised to be, after all.

[Bedtime! Sp?]

"I would agree with him in that," Raven said softly. "Not everyone is suited to that kind of life, and especially not children, no matter what their gifts might be."

She was feeling a strange sense of protectiveness toward Evan. Maybe because he looked like Jono, or because he looked like a little girl who drew on her face with blue lipstick. She knew he must have some connection to Apocalypse, but she wasn't sensing anything evil or dangerous from him.

[SP, yay! \o/ I should be in bed, too.]

"I was eleven when I found out I had powers," Evan murmured. "And almost fifteen when I was in my first real fight. They told me I had to save the world."

After watching his family fade away before his eyes, that was a hefty amount of responsibility to put on the shoulders of a kid of fourteen. But the world was still there, and Uncle Cluster had told him that he'd done well, and he hadn't seen his parents since.

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Library, Sunday 07/01

Talk to Raven [Library 07/01]

Mod the Library [Library 07/01]

Talk to the Librarian [Library 07/01]

OOC [Library 07/01]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/01]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/01]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/01]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/01]

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Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/01]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/01]

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Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/01]

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Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/01]