fandomhigh | Powers, Identity, and The World; Embracing the Real You

When the students filed in for class today, they would find themselves stepping into a typical classroom, desks neatly arranged, with two teachers standing at the front of the room. One of them had his arms crossed over his leather-wrapped chest and was looking over the students thoughtfully. The other was a girl in her early twenties, dressed in a simple blue sweater and dark jeans. She kept fidgeting with a necklace around her neck, specifically with the pendant, which appeared to be two rings.

It was the thoroughly leather-wrapped man who spoke first, because what better way to break the students into having a class about powers than by kicking off the first lesson with telepathy?

//So, as you lot might have gathered, today's class is about powers. And identity.// A beat. //And the world. Which is pretty much what it sounds like on the tin, if you get right down to it. Over the course of the semester, we'll be exploring the impact that having powers might have had on who you are, what the rest of the world might think of you, and how it all ties together. As you might have guessed, we'll be teaching from experience. Last I checked, there weren't exactly textbooks on this sort of thing.//

“If there were, we’d probably throw them out,” the dark-haired girl said. “We’re also going to be talking about who you are, as a person. The word ‘you’ includes your powers, because that’s who you are, but that isn’t all you are. You have interests, friends, wants, needs. You have a favorite color, pet peeves, a secret crush. You’re a complete being. Never forget that. What your powers are may be part of it, but they can only ever be part.”

//Today, we're going to… do that thing you've all got to be sick of by now,// Jono said, shrugging his shoulders. //But at the very least, once we get this out of the way, you won't have to do it for the rest of the semester unless you have other Friday classes. Introductions. I'm Jonothon Starsmore. I'll grudgingly answer to Professor Starsmore if you insist, but I much prefer Jono, or Jon. My power ought to be at least partway obvious by this point,// he tapped at the side of his head, //and I've got a good deal of experience with the world around me expecting me to be defined by what my mutant genetics allow me to do, because besides the telepathy, I'm a walking force of flaming destruction. But… besides all that? I was Prom King my graduating year, and I run the music shop in town. Wanted to be a musician growing up, actually. Still play the guitar from time to time.//

That was relevant to the introductions, yes. They would get to that part in a minute.

“My name’s Rinoa Heartilly, and you can just call me Rinoa,” the girl said, calmly. “I own the Magic Box. When I was seventeen years old, I became a Sorceress. No one here seems to know what that means, but I have nearly limitless arcane power at my fingertips. The difficulty is not getting lost in it, whenever it gets out.”

She lifted her shoulders. “But that’s not all I am. I also have a dog named Angelo, and she’s a trained rescue puppy. I own the Magic Box store downtown. I’ve been dating Squall, the grumpy guy who owns the comics shop, for years now, and he’s really taking his time proposing. I love reading. I’ve been restoring an ancient library, back home, and it’s really fascinating stuff.”

Rinoa looked around the room. “It’s your turn,” she said. “Like Jono said, we’re doing introductions. You can talk about what powers you have if you want, but you don’t have to. That’s not what we’re interested in, right now. What we want to know is, who are you? What’s something you love, and something you hate? What are your hobbies? What’s something interesting about you, the person you are outside of whatever powers you have?”

//In fact,// Jono added, //during the course of this semester, you are never, under any circumstances, going to be required to tell us about your powers. Which brings us to the rules for this class. We don't have many, and the ones we do have all boil down to your personal comfort, and to respect. Nothing anybody discusses in this room leaves this room, unless the person doing the sharing brings it up outside of the classroom themselves. It's nobody's bloody business what we can do, not until we decide it ought to be. Most of you, I'd wager, are already well aware of why.//

“If you’re ever asked a question you don’t want to answer,” Rinoa offered, “it’s simple. You say that you don’t have any powers and you must be in the wrong class. That’s it. It doesn’t matter if last week you were talking about your telekinesis abilities; this week, you don’t have powers and you’re in the wrong class. That’s the universal sign for ‘drop it, I don’t want to talk about it.’ And if you really are unpowered and did end up in the wrong class, you’re welcome to stay, so long as you have respect for everyone around you.”

//After introductions, we'd like to talk a bit about what you're hoping to get out of this class,// Jono added, nodding in agreement with what Rinoa said. //If it's a better understanding of people with powers because you're in the wrong class, excellent. Be respectful of your classmates. If it's a better idea of how to balance your identity with what the world expects you to be or fears you are, good, let us know. We'll do our best through the semester to accommodate. And with that… we're opening the floor.// He waved a hand at the class at large. //Whoever wants to kick this off, please, do.//

[OOC: ~~Please hold for OCD!~~ Open!]

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"Do you change it up a lot, or stick with just a few appearances?" she asked. "I feel like I'd be someone different every day of the week, but then I assume the novelty's long since worn off for you."

And then, because she happened to think of it, "Are most of your shapes humanoid? I mean, do you ever give yourself a tail, or horns, or wings?"

"I have a few basics that I stick to most of the time," Raven said. Like, say, the one she was wearing now. "But I love trying out new shapes. And I can turn into pretty much anything, I think. I can't be metal or rock or anything, but I can look like them. I even turned into an elephant for the ghost thing last month, but that made me feel all floppy and stretched out after."

"So you can change your basic shape and mass, too?" she asked. "Is the elephant the biggest you've gone?"

She couldn't imagine trying to be an elephant. She'd be worried about stomping on all the tiny ant-people down below.

"I can sometimes change my appearance," she said, "but it's just details, and it's not -- I don't think it's the same as the way you do it. I don't make it look like I have a horn; I just focus hard enough to grow one. And then later I make it undo itself."

"It was," Raven said. "I'd only gone really big beefy guy before that. I probably wouldn't have tried it, but we were being attacked by evil dolls and I kind of panicked." She shrugged sheepishly. "It was cool to know I could do that, though. I've gone small plenty of times, but big was new."

She tilted her head thoughtfully. "That's a little bit like what I do?" she said. "Maybe? I'm not sure. I've never met anyone else who does just what I do. But if I wanted a horn, it'd be a real horn, not just an illusion."

"Oh, I see," Rinoa said, nodding thoughtfully. "You seem to do it much more effortlessly than I could imagine. I think I'm just -- changing little minor details of myself, from all the excess magic I'm harnessing. I couldn't make myself look like someone else, or be an elephant. I wouldn't know how to try."

But she did close her eyes and concentrate, for a long moment; just enough to let a blue-and-yellow striped horn curl out from just above her ear, and lay flat against her head like a conch shell.

"Like that," she offered. "It'll stay until I decide it should go away."

Raven leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the horn. "That's really neat," she said. "And you don't have to think about it at all?"

"Right now? Nope," Rinoa said. She crouched down in front of Raven's desk, turning her head so the girl could inspect her horn, if she wanted. "It's there for good. I wouldn't say permanent, since it's easy enough to undo when I want to, but -- it's just part of me now, unless I decide it isn't. Edea had three or four horns like this, and a raised pattern creeping onto her skin. She kept that look for years."

Raven reached out to trace the horn's shape with her finger. "Can you change it, now that it's there? Or would you have to make it go away and then grow a new one?"

"I can change it like I could change anything else," Rinoa said. "At least, I think so. I've never tried before? But I think it'd be the same as if I wanted to change the color of my earlobes."

Which, for the record, she had never actually tried, either, so maybe earlobes were extra-tricky.

She concentrated, focused, and the blue and yellow stripes were replaced with a solid navy.

"You know, I don't know if I could do anything fancy with it," she mused. "Like uncurl it. That might be easier to zap it and just start over."

Raven smiled. "It must be fun to add to a couture look, though."

Powers, Identity, and The World; Embracing the Real You - Friday, Period One

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