Settling In (Open to X-ers)

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Brianna sat on the south lawn in yoga pants and a tank top in the lotus position, counting her breaths as she cycled through several breathing exercises at the end of her meditations. She'd been back at Xavier's for a couple of days now and she was settling in all right. Mom and Dad seemed to be having a good time back home, though she knew her father would want to get out on the road again as soon as possible.

She felt herself return to alertness and opened her eyes as if seeing the world anew for the first time. Her meditations always renewed her spirt and her mind and she was ready to take on the new day.

Standing in one smooth motion, Brianna LeBeau began tehe first of several katas, taking up an open fighting stance and working through encountering her foe, engaging and finally, dispatching that foe before beginning the next kata.

Comments

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Kayla was sauntering about in her usual semi-oblivious way, loud music blasting in her ears as she inadvertently started to sing along, in spirited though distinctly mediocre fashion, to Black Sabbath. She did, however, notice the newish girl and stopped to watch her for a moment, eventually removing one, though not both of her earphones.

"Pretty sweet moves there. I'm guessing you've got some training."

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Brianna continued her current kata to its completion and then stopped, turning to face the newcomer.

"Thank you." Brianna said, her English accent coloring her words. "I'm Brianna LeBeau. Nice to meet you." she said, offering a hand.

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"Kayla Connors." Kayla replied, in a rather neutral accent that gave no real clues about her origins. "Pleased to meet you, too." She took the hand that was offered carefully, which is to say that it still felt awfully firm, but posed no risk of crushing Brianna's hand entirely.

"Hell of a Mansion, eh?"

Well, that probably said something about her location right there. She grinned broadly. "Are you related to one of the X-Men here or just a new kid like me?"

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"Cheers, Kayla. Good to meet you." Brianna said pleasantly, noting the firmness of the handshake. It was a good handshake and she liked Kayla a little bit more already.

"I'm getting settled in again. Haven't been here since I was a little kid. My parents were X-Men. My father is Remy LeBeau and my mother is Elizabeth Braddock. They're both across the pond right now but they'll be back in the States soon." she said.

"How's your day going so far?"

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Oh my god, she said pond. Pond!

Kayla's handshake couldn't help but be firm, the girl could lift a car over her head and toss it. It was a small triump for it just to be firm and not bone-crushing in a horribly literal sense.

"Oh cool. My day's going all right, not much has really happened yet. Kind of avoiding math homework right now, so if I suddenly hide from the math prof, you'll know why." She grinned.

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"If I see the math professor coming, I'll warn you and then run interference while you hide." she grinned.

Personally, Brianna loved math but she understood why it gave so many people fits. It could be extremely confusing to people who knew what was going on on the best of days.

Brianna grabbed her towel and just the noticed the earphones.

"Can I ask what you're listening to?"

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"Sweet deal." Kayla wasn't actually nearly as bad at math as she sometimes liked to claim, it was just that she wasn't as good at it as most other subjects. Also, it was just kind of boring and painful.

"Black Sabbath. Heaven and Hell to be specific, from the Dio period." She threw up the horns and struck a "metal" pose. "Because yeah, I'm a bit of a metalhead." She grinned broadly. "But mostly the classic, melodic stuff. Maiden. Priest. Not so much into the really hardcore death metal."

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"I've heard Black Sabbath but that's about the extent of my metal knowledge." Brianna said with a bit of embarrassment.

"I've listened to a lot more mainstream stuff but I'm always open to new stuff." she said.

"Maybe you could give me an idea of which bands are the good ones? I'd love to hear them for the rest of my workouts." she said.

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"Hold on a sec." Kayla practically beamed and took out a small notepad and a pencil from the carrycase she was toting, furiously scribbling names down. "Well, if we're talking straight metal, for me, Iron Maiden are the gold standard. Casting a bit of a wider net, for more general rock music, it's tough to beat the Clash." She continued writing band names and songs down.

She laughed a bit. "I'm a giant music nerd."

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"Nerds are awesome. Music nerds even more so." Brianna said with a grin. She couldn't wait to look up these bands and hoped they'd get her blood pumping when it was time to get to work.

"How long have you been at the school, if you don't mind my asking?"

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Kayla had no doubt that it would get her blood pumping. How could you not get a little hyped up when listening to awesome, loud music? Maybe she'd get a friend who'd actually be into it enough that she could drag to concerts. Once she had some money to go to them ... maybe Rammstein would tour America again.

Kayla grinned. "Well, I'm glad you think so. Uhh, about three weeks now. Not very long. Kinda catching up on my Grade 12 so I can get my ass to college. My education got a little interrupted by the whole mutant thing."

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Brianna had never been to a concert before but she'd always wanted to go. Sadly, her parents couldn't take her for one reason or another so she promised herself she would go eventually.

She nodded when Kayla said she was catching up on her schooling. Brianna had had private tutors most of her life and finished her secondary school last year.

"I'm hoping to go to university as well. Do you know what you might study? I'm hoping to teach someday, maybe here even." Brianna said.

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"History." That took her about point five seconds to blurt out. "And I would absolutely love to teach here one day. But yeah, any of the humanities, really. I used to be in advanced placement for a lot of that stuff before I had to leave home."

Well, that settled it. Kayla was going to have to drag Brianna out to some concerts sometime soon. They were in shooting range of Madison Square Gardens, so it shouldn't be too hard ... just needed to find money. Which meant finding a job.

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"I'm sorry you had to leave home. That must be pretty rough." Brianna said gently. Brianna silently thanked all that was holy that both of her parents were mutants and taught her how to control herself, and thereby her powers at a young age. She couldn't imagine going through all of this without knowing her parents were there for her.

"History is awesome. I'm a math geek, personally. Sometimes I get the important history dates mixed up but I love reading about it." she said.

"Are you hungry? Do you want to head inside and grab something, maybe?" she asked.

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"It is." Kayla replied candidly, the smile on her face retreating for a moment. It was something she didn't like to dwell on, a wound that still felt kind of raw. Keeping busy helped a lot, though. The smile returned quickly enough.

"I have a pretty good head for facts, but yeah, it's the threads and narratives that interest me the most. And hell yeah. When am I ever not hungry? I think it's a mutant thing." She laughed. "Always hungry."

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"/That/ I can agree with. I feel like I could eat a small child right now." Brianna laughed, grabbing up her water bottle. She would walk with Kayla to the house and head to the cafeteria for something to eat.

"Are you from New York? The city is pretty nice but I haven't been there in a long time. I think I'm going to go in the near future just to hang out at one of the cafes so I can write on my laptop. You should come. It might be fun." she offered.

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"Small child? Man, I could eat a full-grown hippopotamus. They did that for Roman feasts sometimes. Served hippo." Kayla didn't replace the removed earbuds as they walked back towards the school.

"New York? Aw hell naw. I come from Winnipeg." Kayla was pretty much just waiting for what came next. Nobody knew where that even was. Then again, why would they, even if it was a fairly big city. It really was in the middle of nowhere, as far as the world went.

"You write?"

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"I wonder how hippos taste. Probably really tough." Brianna laughed.

"Oh, you're from Canada? That's cool. Do you speak any French?" Brianna asked. Brianna was fluent in French because of her father but hadn't had a chance to speak it lately.

"I love writing, even if I'm not great with it. I hope to write a book someday. Something better than that bloody Twilight tripe, at least." she said.

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"Low and slow, baby. Do that well enough and anything'll come up tender enough. Not sure if it'd be very tasty, though. But you'd get bragging rights? Forget sushi, you've had a hippopotamus." Kayla grinned.

"A little bit. I learned it in school, but can't say I'm fantastic with it. Never spent much time in St. Boniface with the French folks there, and I was a hella long way from Quebec." It was something that Kayla wouldn't mind working on, though it'd probably got pretty damn rusty after a year away from home.

"Me too. And come on, girl. Set some higher goals for yourself." Kayla smirked. "That's like setting the goal of running a twelve-minute mile."

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"I'll help you with French if you'll help with history at some point." Brianna offered.

"And hey, writing better than Twilight /is/ a goal. But if I can write anything as well as George R.R. Martin or Robert Jordan, I'll call that a victory, too. I've got an idea in mind I've been working on for a few years but I just haven't been able to get it completed." she told Kayla.

"What's Winnipeg like? Never been to Canada but I keep saying I'll go one of these years."

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"Sounds like a deal." Kayla agreed.

"Oh yeah? What's your idea about? I've kicked around a few myself, but never really sat down and wrote enough. Maybe when November rolls around, I'll give NaNO a go." She shrugged as they walked towards the Mansion, and she opened up the door for Brianna.

"Well, it's one of the coldest major cities in the world, though it's nice enough in the summer. Can't say it's a beautiful place, really. But I dunno, most of the people are pretty cool." Most of the people in the city wouldn't have done that to her. She was sure about it. "And there's lots of cool quirky places that are near and dear to me."

"It's home, you know? But I'm kind of in exile right now."

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"Well, I have a huge universe written out but the main story is about a pair of boys who were switched at birth. One is sent to live with the rangers that protect a kingdom and the other becomes the prince of the kingdom.

They both come of age as war with a race of beastmen comes to their door." Brianna explained as she entered the mansion.

"I've been meaning to give NaNo a try but I always get distracted. You should give it a try, though. If nothing else, you might find an idea you didn't know you had, right?"

Brianna was really enjoying talking to Kayla. It wasn't usually hard for her to make friends but it also didn't seem this easy. Kayla was really easy to talk to.

"Most of the people in London are pretty cool, too. Some of the clubs are awesome but I love the bookstores and cafes most, though."

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"Sounds pretty sweet, actually. And thank God I'm not the only person who's kinda into fantasy stuff. If you've ever had any interest in the RPG side of it, you would've loved Pendragon back home. Chock full of all sorts of nerdy goodness." Kayla was a pretty uninhibited person, it wasn't all that hard to get a decent bead on her personality.

"Well, that settles it. We'll do NaNo together in November. And when one of us says we can't do it, the other will kick their ass into going on with it."

"But first ... we find food." Kayla looked around, getting her bearings before starting to make a beeline for the kitchen.

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"Fantasy is my favorite genre. I love it." she affirmed.

She nodded in agreement at the idea of doing NaNo together. "Deal. I'm in. But yeah, let's eat before that hippo or small child walks by. I make no promises on what's going to happen if they do." Brianna said, following Kayla to the kitchen.

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Kayla cackled at that. "Right, let's go find some food. Hopefully they've still got lots of bacon."

Kayla was in the mood for bacon right then, which was the same as most other times, when she thought of it. Thankfully, the mutant metabolism did wonders to conceal poor dietary choices.