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Lorna was out and enjoying the spring weather. Today was warmer than usual, and so she'd donned a jean jacket and taken a bus out from Westchester. Green hair drew looks and frowns of disapproval. A few mutters from irritated matrons and a few side eyes from younger women. Grass green hair was decidedly not acceptable. Still, Lorna looked sheepish, and continued on her way, getting off the bus and wandering around the outskirts of the park.
She'd been warned to be careful about the park proper, so she took to just walking along side it. She stopped every so often, buying herself a lemonade, and some chips. A happy, contented sigh escaped her as she walked for the simple pleasure of it. No requirements for what she was supposed to do with herself today.
The sun was high in the off-blue colored sky, and weather reports suggested it might rain later. Yet for now? Now it was sunny, without much of a breeze, and the amount of pedestrians outside skyrocketed.
*
There has been one young teenager who has been spotted here and again, rumored to have been helping people accosted by those who gave the park it's notorious reputation for danger at certain times and areas. For some reason she kept out of sight, and those who spot her, usually claim she comes dropping down straight off the treetops.
Today she's not perched high on a treetop, mostly because something took her interest. The girl with the unique green hair, and those detestable people giving evil eyes to someone simply for being a bit different.
At first Laura keeps some distance between herself and the green haired girl, but eventually, after Lorna looks relaxed with chips and lemonade, she walks directly up to her. For her part, she's a raven haired girl, slightly shorter than Lorna, dressed a bit like a beatnik. "Hello," she says softly, almost enough to be inaudible.
*
Lorna pauses in her eyeing a flowering tree, attempting and failing at figuring out what type it was. All she knew was that it was beautiful. A glance was spared toward the young raven haired girl that approached, and Lorna blinked, pausing with a chip in her mouth that she hurriedly tried to choke out as she patted her hand off against her lavender skirts.
"Oh! Hi." She beamed, offering her hand toward the other young woman after shoving her bag of chips under her arm. Without missing a beat, the green haired girl would continue on.
"I'm Lorna. Do you need something? I was just admiring the tree. I dunno what it is, but I think it might be a fruit tree." She glanced around, looking owlishly around her and back.
*
"It's not poisonous," Laura remarks when she notes how Lorna is studying the flowering tree, perhaps not your everyday thing to say, but if something was poisonous, one would likely appreciate knowing that fact. The beaming smile that follows Lorna's greeting has Laura at a slight loss, unsure how to react, she forces something akin to a smile on her own lips, if in a weak attempt to mimic Lorna.
Laura's eyes avert towards the hand extended towards her, and she mostly looks at it like some foreign object she wasn't sure what she's supposed to do with. In the end she settles for extending her hand towards Lorna in a similar fashion, once again resorting to mimicry. "No." She stalls for a moment, and quips, "do you know why your hair is green?"
*
A glance was spared toward the flowering tree and Lorna blinked, "Oh. Well. That's a good thing to know. When I was growing up some lady down the road from me tried to put Lilly of the Valley on her daughter's wedding cake. My mom stopped her, so luckily no one got hurt but yeah. Good to know those things." She grinned, and glanced back toward Laura in time to catch the odd manner in which she extended her hand.
Lorna mentally shrugged and made to try to shake hands like any normal person would. "Oh my hair? Uhm.. yeah." She bit her lower lip, glancing around and back awkwardly. "I was born this way, I guess."
*
"Yes," Laura is rather short and to the point when she agrees with Lorna, upon hearing the story about the Lilly of the Valley. As Lorna reaches to take hold of her hand for a handshake, Laura doesn't respond in kind until after Lorna got a hold of her hand. Laura's own attempt is rather awkward, almost as if she's never done or seen the gesture before. "So…you didn't dye your hair. It is naturally green. An oddity." Laura doesn't so much sound like she's trying to insult Lorna, as much as she's robotically stating a fact. "People shouldn't be mean to you because of your hair color."
*
Lorna for her part, didn't look weirded out by Laura's mechanical hand shake. She remained relaxed, and at ease, smiling gently as she retracted her hand and pushed her hair back self consciously. "Ah, well.. no they shouldn't be. But they are. I'm lucky it's only my hair really stands out, not everyone born.. uhm different has something as simple as different colored hair. Though to be fair, most people don't think that it's natural. I get a lot of comments about bad dye jobs or wigs though." She shrugged.
The chips bag crinkled as Lorna shifted her grip on it. "You're actually the first person all day to talk to me about it rather than just muttering under their breath." She laughed as if the fact amused her, "I'm still getting used to not dying it brown honestly.."
*
Laura seems to appreciate Lorna's "go with the flow" attitude, in how she doesn't quite remark on anything Laura does. It's refreshing to meet someone like Lorna. With the handshake done, Laura quickly places her hand by her side. "Green can easily be achieved by mistake," Laura notes helpfully, as if to support the bad dye job as a reason if anyone ever gets on Lorna's case.
"I am different," Laura says confidently, "I think different is good. Did anyone ever hurt you for it?" Laura asks, almost as if looking for an excuse to go beat down some random idiot.
*
A blink, and Lorna twisted a lock of green hair between her fingers in the sunlight. "Hmm, I guess so. Though most think trying to dye your hair is pretty bad. I mean, it's bad for your hair anyways.." She rolled her eyes and shrugged. She rolled up the bag of chips, firmly tucking it under her arm when it became apparent that she wasn't going to be eating more anytime soon.
As Laura speaks about being different too, her brows furrowed. "You are? Groovy." She smiled briefly, as it dropped at Laura's question.
"Well, I dunno. Small things. Growing up a lot of the kids at school made fun of me. I got picked on pretty badly. Small town woes and all." She shrugged, "So I guess.. nothing too serious over my hair color. But I've worn it brown until recently so who knows."
*
"I know what it's like, being picked on…" Laura states blandly, as if she wasn't talking about anything traumatic, but rather a daily occurance type scenario. Routine. "I can help, if someone is picking on you. I know how to make people stop."
*
A small smile returned and Lorna shrugged, rubbing the back of her neck. A hesitant laugh escaping her, "Oh I don't really get picked on for my hair much in New York. Just mutters and glares these days. At least so far." A rise and fall of her shoulders followed and she glanced around and back.
"I got picked on much more recently for using Polish words that people didn't understand and thought meant something else entirely. So I've basically stopped using them outside of my family. Just isn't worth the hassle." She grimaced, and arched a brow.
"How do you get people to stop picking on you?"
*
Laura nods as Lorna explains about Polish words and people not understanding them, she can relate, Polish isn't one of the languages she speaks. But she knows better than to jump to conclusions about what someone might have said when they speak in foreign language. Besides, there are other "tells" available to her.
Laura's explanation on how to stop people from picking on someone is a fairly simple one, if not very audible, she just raises a clenched fist infront of her face and quips, "like this."
*
A blink and a pause, as if Lorna was attempting to figure out what the dark haired girl before her meant. "Oh. OH!" She clapped a hand over her lips and flushed faintly. "My nephew does that too.." She bit her lower lip.
"You know, ah, punch people that make fun of him. I don't exactly.. I'm not the best er.. I don't like to do that. Punch people." She glanced down at her shoes and shifted her weight back onto her heels.
"I just.. I kinda do other things. Different things. I don't mean to do them, but I do when I get upset." She shrugged.
"I'm getting better at not accidentally doing.. things."
*
Laura has heard enough to surmise just what those other things might be, even if not precisely how they work specifically for Lorna, "a mutant?" She asks curiously, "what do you do? And if you can't, I will do it for you, if I saw you get picked on."
*
A glance, hesitant fell on Laura and then around them, as if someone might jump on them for speaking the word out loud. But considering that none so much as glanced their way? Lorna sighed and shrugged, pushing her hair back with a hand. "Yeah. Uhm, well I can manipulate magnetic fields. Basically anything that's an iron alloy I can move." She wiggled her fingers before her.
A slight pressure would be put on anything metallic on Laura's person, just a nudge, as if Lorna was gently tapping on the other young woman.
*
"That's useful," seems to be Laura's assessment of Lorna's ability, immediately thinking of applications that relate to her field of infiltration and assassination. When Lorna emphasizes her power by pressing Laura's pendant against her, Laura nods, "you can control it. That's good. Practice. You'll get better."
*
A shrug and Lorna released whatever magnetic pressure she'd sent Laura's way. "So my father says. Always pushing training, training and more training. I get why. It's just tiresome. I'll likely get an earful for skipping out today to just get outside and enjoy the weather." She grinned and glanced back to the dark haired girl.
"I didn't catch you name?" She blinked, tilting her head to the side. "Also you said you're different too.. do you mean like uhm how I meant?"
*
"I am Laura," the raven haired girl offers when Lorna reminds her that she didn't provide her name in turn. "I am. Yes. But different." Cocking her head to the side thoughtfully, she notes, "your father is right. Practice makes perfect."
*
A smiled returned to Lorna's features and she shifted her grip on the chips under her arm, "Well, Laura, want to walk with me? Also, want to help me finish off these chips? I'm not entirely sure I can finish them." She gripped and held out the rumbled bag toward the dark haired girl.
"And cool," She paused as if considering. "Did you come over to talk to me 'cause my hair meant I was different too or was it just too weird to ignore?" She teased lightly, and at the mention of her father's words groaned faintly.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. Just tiresome when he pushes me way too far all the time. He's got the same thing as me, and just expects me to do what he can. But I really can't and it's frustrating."
*
"I can walk with you," Laura answers as if she had no real preference on the mater, though she does readily reach to take a handful of the chips the moment Lorna offers, munching them with enthusiasm pointing to the fact she might be a bit hungry.
"Yes. Your hair, you're different, that appeals to me."
Laura has no clue who Lorna's father might be, but she knows all about being pushed to the peak of one's abilities, "you are walking here now. You have chips. I don't think he pushes too hard."
*
An exhale of a laugh escaped her, "Well, that's cause I kinda left before I was supposed to train. I'm on Spring Break, I'm supposed to get time off to enjoy .. spring. Right? Time to relax? I mean, don't get me wrong, my father is very careful with me and understanding and I love training with him as opposed to not.. but like. The other day? He wanted me to manipulate things on the molecular level. I can't do that. So he gave me a textbook on molecular bonding and how it works and so on." She shrugged.
"I'm already taking college classes in science and he's giving me more reading to do on top of training. So not cool." She sipped at her lemonade, and continued to hold the bag out toward Laura as she started to walk along the side walk at a steady gait.
*
Laura seems gradually more and more comfortably walking by Lorna's side and taking from her chips, becoming more controlled each time she takes another helping of chips. "Reading is part of learning. It sometimes helps in application," Laura comments, not seeming like she has an opinion about Spring Break altogether. But then the way she treated the handshake earlier, would it really surprise anyone? Not likely.
*
A shrug, and Lorna would sip at her lemonade and continue walking as Laura helped herself to chips from time to time. "Yeah, it's just rather dry stuff. Like how the magnetization of a compound, an iron heavy alloy for instance, impacting its zero-field splitting and.." She paused and trailed off. "I still don't understand all of it. It's like I'm learning about basics at college and my father wants me to read stuff years ahead of what I'm supposed it."
She exhaled and grumbled a breath, "That's frustrating." She heaved a sigh, glancing up at the flowering tree branches above them.
"Has anyone ever picked on you Laura?" The change in subject was rather abrupt but it seemed to have weighed on Lorna none the less.
*
Laura continues to react with occasional nodding as Lorna explains more about a topic she really has no mastery of because: magents, is there anything they can't do?
Laura does turn to look directly at Lorna when she asks her if she's been picked on, leading Laura to hesitate, because it really was a matter of perspective. Did her handlers at the program pick on her? Or were they merely doing their job, ensuring she was the perfect weapon. She still wasn't quite settled on whether she was a defective weapon, or something more. It was a question that weighed on her mind on a personal level, and wasn't something she was about to discuss with Lorna, who she just met.
After some deliberation, she eventually offers, "I was trained harshly, I guess some of it was like getting picked on."
*
A nod and Lorna sipped at her lemonade, glancing sideways at Laura briefly. "I'm sorry." She pursed her lips together, rattling around the ice cubes in her cup. "It .. it wasn't your parents that were harsh, was it?" She arched a brow, and then grimace.
"Oh my gosh, I'm sorry to be prying. You don't have to answer. Promise. I just forget sometimes how lucky I am and everything and gah.." Lorna blushed and glanced down at the sidewalk.
"I've got a big mouth. I've been told that I can be rather oblivious."
*
"No need to apologize," Laura notes, looking a bit confused about Lorna's apology, "you just asked a question." She delays a moment when considering if it was her parents or not, and eventually replies, "no need to worry. Most of them are dead now." Laura shrugs about Lorna having a big mouth, offering a counter of, "your mouth is well proportioned, stop worrying."
*
A worried glance was spared for Laura as she mentioned people who had been harsh and possibly 'picked on her' were dead. Green eyebrows lurched upwards and Lorna finished off her lemonade, tossing the paper cup out in a nearby trashbin as they walked by one. She glanced back toward Laura at the last bit, and a laugh escaped her.
"It's not a literal thing. More of a saying. It means I talk a lot. And sometimes I don't think about what I say as well as I should. That's all." A beat as the two continued to walk, "It's okay, to not get them. I'm always explaining to my sister or brother about sayings. They don't speak English as their first language and they miss the bits and pieces of the language."
*
Laura seems rather pleased with the change in topic, specifically Lorna explaining the actual meaning of having a "big mouth", which does seem to make more sense to her. "I see. An expression. Does that make me like your brother or sister?" Laura asks curiously, finding it interesting that she may be like someone who is not Weapon X.
*
A nod, "Mhm, there's lots in English and they're different depending where you are. Like in the Southern US, they have sayings like 'Bless your heart' which sounds good, but is really just a way of insulting you. In England they've got different ones too." She smiled and glanced back to Laura as she turned around, walking backwards.
"Well, my sister and brother didn't have a normal childhood. So they're even a bit more lost when it comes to certain things. And technically they're my half siblings. Only just found that out in the last year. Totally weird, right? But they're cool. They mean well. They're different too." She reached up, catching a flower petal that tumbled from the fruit trees above.
She caught it, and then blew it back up into the air idly.
*
Laura listens to Lorna, but while she listens to Lorna, and Lorna reaches for some fruit, she's having second thoughts about spending so much time away from cover. "Interesting. We will meet again. Goodbye." It's all so abrupt and sudden, but Laura makes a quick retreat, and in no time at all, she's climbed up a tree top. Maybe she wants a bit of alone time?
*