taxonomites | 08 | Visual/Location: Gwen's House

At first, blue light fills the tablet screen, flickering in and out and making little buzz buzz noises. When it zooms out, two pale hands are visible, and the electricity bounces in the air between Gwen Raiden's palms. Now the tablet focuses in on Gwen, whose way of battling stir-craziness is to make pretty blue light shows with her hands. She's reclined on her couch, sinking into the cushion with her feet relaxed in front of her. The palms of her hands are facing each other, and jagged streams of blue light fizz in and out in the gap between them. She looks concentrated, her eyes not wavering from where the bits of electricity are generated, but she's not focused. She's somewhere far, far away. After a while, the light show tends to lose its shine. After a few decades, it's pretty much like throwing a ball up and down, up and down.

And then it seems to be over. There's one last, dying flicker of blue lightning, and then nothing but air. Gwen's hands still hover, but the electricity's gone.

Now her eyes focus, and Gwen returns. She leans up from her reclining position, her legs swinging up over the table and down to the floor. She wiggles her fingers, moves her hands apart and close together. "Okay," she murmurs, her brow furrowed in confusion and suspicion and a little bit of worry. "What's the game?"

As if struck by some idea, she stands up, walks to the other end of the room, and puts her bare hand to a light switch.

Nothing happens, and this might seem ordinary to most Taxon residents, but Gwen looks like she woke up with purple skin. She moves to another part of the room and touches something, and then another, and then another, and when the tablet finally catches her eye again, her brow has softened, her eyes are bright and wide, and her lips are pressed into the most ecstatic smile Taxon's ever seen.

"I can't believe it," she says, aloud, incredulous. She lets out a short laugh. "It's gone."

[OOC: Beginning of Gwen's glitch! No more electricity what could go wronnnngg?]

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Gwen's smiles at the tablet, not bothered by the accidental broadcast (not today) and genuinely happy to see him.

"I think I just got a gift from the Taxon gods," she replies. Only now, as the first seconds of the discovery dwindle, she wonders if revealing to someone like Long what she was before might taint his opinion of her now. She respects him, and he's always nice to her. Would knowing why she always wore gloves put him off?

She decides that no, he'd probably dig it...in that intellectual intrigue way. But she holds off. "I had a kind of...power. It sucked. And now it's gone."

Long is less than sanguine about her cheer, although he hates to be a wet blanket. So he doesn't say their gifts never last, instead he only offers a non-committal noise.

The bit about the power is interesting, though, and he arches a brow. "A power! Do tell. I must say, I have never met so many people beyond the pale, as it were, in many years of life on earth, as in my single year here in Taxon."

She smiles crookedly, thinking that it's just so much easier (not to mention, having a cooler dramatic flare) to show and tell. Without the Show, Tell just looses that extra something.

But is Gwen going to complain? No.

"I hear ya," she says. "Makes a girl feel right at home. My thing? Exciting subatomic particles with electrical energy, making them dance around and all that fun, textbook science stuff." She shrugs, like, no big deal. Been there, done that. She wiggles her fingers.

"I doubt the side effects would shock you."

She can't resist.

She's punning; Long's face remains politely impassive but his eyes gleam a bit with humor.

"And currently you find yourself discharged of this ability? What a jolt that must be," he deadpans, and then relents enough to chuckle.

"My initial amusement was correct-- over your name. I am always delighted when nomenclature is appropriate."

"I'm absolutely awestruck," she adds with a light laugh of her own, but definitely unable to keep the impressive straight face even for a moment.

"Yeah. Funny how that works out." She shrugs--a nonchalant, accepting gesture that shows the irony is definitely not above her head, but whatever, she's over it. "Guess the universe has a sense of humor. But between you and me?" She holds up a hand. "I like not being a live wire a lot better."

Edited 2012-02-16 01:34 (UTC)

"I can imagine so," Long concedes. "Day to day life would be necessity be more complex when one is... ungrounded." That one, he means as less pun and more philosophical statement, but the difference may be hard to tell.

"When will I receive the pleasure of your company for tea, Miss Raiden?"

"You're one of the first people to say that, here," she says, her smile thin. And there's irony in that--that the reaction here is so opposite to what it is back home. "Back home, I'm a freak. But I deal. Always have. I know how to make the most out of a suck situation. But here?" She holds out her hands, like she's on display. "I don't stand out so much, here. Most people think it's cool. Like I'm some busty chick from a comic book. But they seem to miss the punchline."

She isn't sure which of those reactions she likes better. But she's not going to cry over people being nice to her, instead of screaming and running.

"Tea," she says, with a relieved sigh. "As soon as you can brew it."

"Back 'home'," Long answers dryly, "I am bored. Less so in Taxon. I will refrain from commenting on any resemblance you may have to a 'busty chick from a comic book', although I will say that Tank Girl is an amusing read.

"Tomorrow, then? Mid-afternoon, shall we say?"

08 | Visual/Location: Gwen's House | Power Outage.

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