1963-07-28 - Statler and Waldorf
Summary: After a summary dismissal, questions about the Institute ensue.
Related: N/A
Theme Song: None
rogue louis akihiro 


Mutant Town in New York on a Thursday night is not as wild nor active as it tends to get on the weekend. There's nobody in the neighborhood from out of town, though during the hot summer evenings a lot of the area's denizens are out on the porches as they can, with windows ajar and even earlier today there was a fire hydrant opened that spilled out its contents onto the street. Puddles still splosh and slosh with the passing of cars through the burb, though few cars stop.

It's outside of one of the local hang outs, that the man known as Louis King finds himself. He's sitting in an old wicker-lined wooden chair that was roughly painted yellow, rocking back on its rear two legs with his feet propped up on the wrought iron gate that surrounds the local eatery's outdoor area. It's not much to look at really, just a few iron grate tables with umbrellas in the center of them, and more wooden chairs surrounding them.

Currently, the Professor of Archaeology is smoking a cigarette and ashing it to the side as he shares a few words with two older men there, one of them seems to have eyestalks of all things, while the other fellow has a reddish skin tone. They seem to be getting along pretty well, joking, laughing, a bevy of empty beer bottles are set on the table, probably waiting for a waitress to clear them, which is a long time coming.

*

"Not sure how I feel about all this." Akihiro decides, opening his new pack of cigarettes and popping one in the corner of his mouth. "Well, I do. It pisses me off about as much as Chinatown." he lights up his cigarette and takes a long drag from it. He looks to not have much else to say, hooking the thumb of his right hand into his pocket.

*

All a woman needs is a nice, tall glass of lemonade with a couple cubes jangling around, something sweet to sip the afternoon farewell before the heat finally dissipates. Not that heat will, trapped in the high eighties, radiating a shimmer off the tarmac and captured in every last fixture man thought to build on the Hudson delta. The puddles will have to do in absence of the lemonade since no cafes serve up lemonade for a pretty porch swing and an idyll worthy of southern charm. New York is harsh and grey, judgmental and gritty, streaked by wealth and condoning graffiti tags laying claim even here to a bastion of privilege.

The cabs swing by the streets, never stopping even for redheads. This one has a motorcycle to get around, anyways, maneuvering around the pedestrians hopping off curbs and parked cars two deep in front of certain fancy apartments where the red-coated guards melt while waiting on their rich charges. She zips through the puddles, cutting straight lines that throw a bright mirror sheen into the air. A basket on the back is filled by flowers and herbs; nasturtiums, lavender, larkspur, rosemary. Other smaller matters jangle around inside, locked in place by oilpaper. Light glistens off her fashionably jade helmet, and the engine revs upwards as she shifts.

When a spot opens up, it's rare as hen's teeth around here. And she immediately twists the bike's handlebars around, executing a tight turn. The reason for almost always wearing boots? Convenience of planting her sole down on the pavement so the backend doesn't whip out on her, and bolting forward to claim her prize. It won't be but a few moments longer before she swings her leg over the seat, keys dragged from the ignition.

*

Scratching at his chin with a fingertip from the hand that holds his cigarette, Louis looks across the way towards Akihiro and then espies Rogue's arrival with that air of curiosity, yet not too terribly surprised, as if he assumed that all has progressed as it should. So he does lift a hand towards Rogue, the young woman most likely knew he planned to be here this evening for whatever reason, but Akihiro's presence is perhaps a surprise.

"You're the fellow from the Institute, neh?" Louis reaches a hand over to snare a beer bottle and tilt it back for a leisurely sip. His tablemates give Akirhiro an eyeballing, as if trying to place him for some reason.

*

Akihiro spies Rogue, but before he can say anything Louis steals his attention. "Yeah." he calls over, "Akihiro. Can't remember if I introduced myself or not." He heads over so he's close enough to talk without raising his voice any. "And you're.." he pauses, going blank. "Did you introduce yourself? Sometimes my memory isn't the best."

*

The motorcycle settles down with a crackle of pistons cooling in the dying sun. In that brief moment, Scarlett reaches up to unsnap the chinstrap, pulling it free on a swinging pendulum arc. Then both hands press upwards on the outer rim, breaking the seal of gravity. The leonine wealth of her hair tumbles in a bloody curtain free, a brief view of the snow-white streak running through a thin plait given. Bouncing hair settles around her narrow shoulders, and she twists her torso to plop down the captured German skull that's her cheery jade helmet. Live vicariously or live not at all. Her sauntering steps carry her up, the boots not so much squeaking, her segmented leggings underneath her dress making something of a whispering sound. "Professor Louis King, Columbia, archaeology. Exceptional academic pedigree hidden in a drab and dreary office protected by a gynosphinx named Moria, like the sacred maiden Athene transformed into a tree in the holy perimeter of the Akropolis."

Everyone likes a girl with a Trivial Pursuit command of facts and language, really. "He doesn't bite terribly hard, promise." Which one is she talking about. "Scarlett, student, protege to the Wyrd, la la la la."

*

"Or you may simply call me, Louis." The man at the table with his feet propped up smiles openly towards Akihiro and offers a small wink towards Rogue.

For some reason the old man with the eye stalks finds this funny and barks a rough series of laughs which earns him a small from Louis as the fellow Statlers and Waldorfs with the best of them.

Turning back to Akihiro, the professor gestures with one hand idly. "What brings you out and about, Akihiro? Are you often at ease with fate bringing disparate individuals together on such an occasion? Any thoughts as to why we have been?"

*

"We're not really that different at the end of the day. I mean, I'm not a college professor," Akihiro gestures to Scarlett, "or a high school graduate, but we all want similar things, have had similar experiences." Not bad for a Japanese kid dressed in his finest greaser apparel. "But at the end of the day, I don't practice seidr. Pretty sure it's not a coincidence, but I like to take it as it comes, you know?"

*

The arch of her eyebrows answers his question easily enough. "I'm a little more than a high school graduate. Consider it my privilege to suffer through the lectures at Barnard before Columbia considered their female quota needed to be upped by one, sir. I put in my time." She makes it sound somewhat like prison, and the purring amusement hitched through Scarlett's voice holds the very faintest edge.

Laughter wants to break through in every second. She withholds that, gliding around Akihiro and flashing a wink his way. Then it takes only a few more steps to place herself square in front of the table where the two stranger fellows and Louis hold their territory. "You /know/ it's called seidr, though. That makes a difference."

One moment later, she perches upon the table, knees hooked gracefully high.

*

"What, you mean like the drink?" Louis' tone is curious as he ashes his cigarette into the tray, stubbing the life out of it as he lowers his chair back to its full four feet. A hand reaches into his back pocket as he starts to rise, slapping one of the older men on the shoulder even as he pulls out a few bills and sets them on the table to cover the bill.

With that done he steps out past the gate in the small fence, setting foot on the sidewalk and starting to walk down the way, even as other locals wander past them, each person lost in their own little world.

"Yet you both attend that Institute. I'm curious… why?" He asks them both this levelly even as he turns to start down the sidewalk, perhaps assuming they'll fall into stride with him so they can wander on their way.

*

"Friend of mine was into Norse mythology. And I was just making a point, I actually didn't even go to high school at all." It takes a moment, but he does fall into step with Louis. "I just arrived not too long ago. My father is there, and it seems like a place where I can help make a change. Well, make a change without using my claws. Last thing I want is to become the monster they tried to make me over the last four years." His jaw sets slightly at that, clearly an unpleasant event for him.

*

No sooner has Scarlett just settled on the tabletop and there Louis goes breezing past her in all his professorial curtness, probably making a rapid escape. Her verdant gaze traces after that kinetic force in besuited form. Considering the options in rapid form, she slides her legs forward and pushes herself off the wire surface with her hands, leaping forward.

"You intend to go roaming like that, Louis, I'm going to well insist you sit on the back of the pegasus so we can have a proper conversation," she dryly comments. "Or is this merely an attempt to see whether we will trail after you like the respected teachers of the academy? You need robes, to properly play the part, flapping around you."

Her gait nonetheless can match the pair of them without difficulty though she might not be the tallest of them. "Why else? Knowledge. Knowledge is power, and making choices about my life instead of having them made for me."

*

Pausing and turning back to look at them, he holds up a fingertip even as people continue to wander and flow around them, just a casual evening crowd moving about their business. He looks between them. "A little of each, perhaps." But he considers them and then adds, "If you intend to continue there, I'd recommend that you each consider what you might gain from there besides free room and board. Nothing is ever truly free, is it not?"

That having been said he turns back, "I will look into this matter and perhaps get back to you, we'll consider alternatives. There must be one… or another. We'll see."

A nod is given and then he takes a turn to step into the nearby alleyway. Once he's out of view he disappears and is impossible to find, even for a gifted individual with a particularly strong sense of smell.

*

Akihiro starts to say something, and then Louis is gone. "I can't smell him. Guess he teleported." he informs Scarlett, brows furrowing slightly. "This guy's tricksy. Not sure how I feel about that."

*

One step, another. The redhead halts short when the darkness draws out to take something which is no longer there. But then, this is the nature of her curse for in the millions of bodies surrounding her, a cacophony of voices and fates interwoven, she is forever accursed to stand apart.

Lips part, a word too late. Emerald eyes frost over as she drops back the step, her fingertips closing around the empty space articulated down to her palm. How else can one endure, suffice, abide in the crushing isolation of her existence? She reedes onto her heels, rocking back a step, and for a moment stares into the abandoned alleyway with its heavy load of neat trash cans lined up, the orderly procession of power lines and meters hidden so as not to offend those precious sensibilities of the rich who dwell here.

Scarlett is silent for long, long minutes, seeing nothing. "If he is, it changes nothing. In our way, aren't we all?"

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