2014.02.23 - Lucy In The Park With Terra

Central Park, even with the cold of the season so far - always seemed to have something going on. In this case - well, there was a concert. A handful of college types with an indieish sound, dressed up against the cold and singing their hearts out. Cold was a bit of an exaggeration, by the by - while it was chilly, the sun was shining warm as they near the midday - so it wasn't freezing. 
 
That's probably why they had a small crowd of young persons and even a couple adults lingering on, watching them. 
 
Amongst their number was Karolina Dean. Wearing a puffy lavender coat, and a multicolored scarf around her neck, 'lina was also wearing a pair of darker ski pants, tucked into a pair of hiking shoes - a smile dancing on her face as she kinda stands on her tiptoes to watch the band play.
Terra for the most part kept to the business of superheroing and championing justice, all the while promoting her message of protecting the environment. But recently, she's learned that on the Surface world there are other things, diversions, and people and interesting systems, such as codenames and secret names. While she wanted to perhaps attempt such a secret identity, she's yet to learn enough about it to give it a go. But for the time being, she did pick up on observing the locals when not doing remarkable work.
Today was such an occasion, as Terra stands on a flying rock that slowly descends towards Central Park, drawn by the music and the sight of people dancing. Something that was quite new to her, and she looks at the silly movement with a gradually growing smile. Curiously enough, she doesn't seem to be affected by the cold, considering her costume is more or less a leotard.
Needless to say, some of the crowd was more than a little nervous when a woman on a flying rock comes rolling by. Supervillains doing supervillainy things was more or less common to New York - but - maybe Terra was known enough to not cause much nervousness? Even if she was, some of the crowd was starting to drift away from the band in general, and what could ~possibly~ be a hotspot in a fight or something. 
 
Even Karolina Dean. 
 
Drifting away alongside one of the college-aged young men that she saw - 'lina breaks off from him to slip behind a tree, yanking off her bracelet - a rainbow aura of light exploding into being around her. Lifting up off of the ground, 'lina floats herself, kinda approaching the airborne Terra - lifting up a hand to wiggle her fingers in a greeting, at first. "Um. Hi!" she calls out. 
 
The band plays on. Even if both young women were getting odd looks.
Relatively new to the surface world, not too many know of Terra, aside from those who have seen her help here and there. She tends to pop in and out around the globe, though lately Metropolis has been a center of sorts for her.
When Karolina makes her radiant approach to Terra, she turns around to face her, smiling at the finger wiggle greeting while mimicing it, "hi! You can fly!"
"I /can/ fly - um..." says Karolina Dean. Like the other, she wasn't too terribly known either, beyond getting in the paper once or twice for random acts of Hero. "You can fly too! On a rock, it looks like?" she asks. There was a little bit of a hesitance to her overall demeanour, the young woman glancing earthward before she looks back up towards Terra again. 
 
"You're not here to attack anybody, or... you know... do anything /weird/?" she asks, kinda tilting her head a bit to one side, kinda hovering in place - a short distance away from Terra proper.
"So you can! That is awesome! Flying is so much fun!" Terra says with childish delight, looking brightly at Karolina. "Well, almost, I make the rock fly...and I catch a ride, kinda like surfing in the sky!"
Terra looks aghast at the proposition that she might be there to attack anyone. "Attack anybody!? I am a Champion of Good! And Justice! I protect, I don't attack!" Terra looks intensely at Karolina, as if trying to will her into believing her, scared of the possibility anyone might think of her as someone who randmonly attacks people.
That smile really was infectious. 'lina couldn't quite shake the smile from her lips herself at the sheer joy the other woman expressed. "I... well... that's really cool! I mean, when I first flew - it's such a sense of, you know, freedom. Even if it can get a little... cold... sometimes," says Karolina, kinda chewing on her lower lip as she glances Terra up and down a bit. Okay. "Or not. Obviously not an issue for you," she says. 
 
And Karolina lifts her hands defensively - that intense stare kinda causing her eyes to drift down and away. "...I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just have never seen you before - I guess..." Karolina lifts up a hand, pushing her hair over her shoulder, and glancing back up to Terra. "I guess you could think that I could be a villain too, but I promise I'm not. Oh, right!" 
 
Drifting a little forward, Karolina offers a hand. "I'm... um... Karolina Dean. Normally, I only call myself Lucy as a codename - you know, after the Beatles song - but I don't know if the whole secret identity thing is worth it, some days."
Terra does have that infectious childish glee and wonder about her, which tends to make her fun to be around, for some. Other might find her insufferable, but to each their own. "YES!" Terra says with a clap of her gloved hands, "exactly! Flying next to the bird...wind in my hair, visting the clouds! And it's oh so beautiful too!" Grinning widely as Karolina notes Terra's lack of coldness, she strikes a pose and asserts, "I am the Champion of..." but then recalling she needs to keep some things secrets, she falls back on good all, "Good and Justice! So I don't get cold...or hot...well, I'm kinda friends with the Earth, maybe it's part of it. Temperature doesn't bother me. I like it all."
"Well now you've seen me!" Terra lifts one arm in triumph, before helpfully explaining, "because I'm not invisible!" She then lowers her hand and extends it towards Karolina, "my name is Terra! What is yours?" Shaking her head vehemently, Terra streses, "I don't think badly of anyone until they deserve it!"
"You know singing beetles!? I didn't know beetles could sing!" Terra looks utterly amazed as she shakes hands with Karolina, and a moment later, she giggles, "you're not supposed to give your secret name, only your codename, because otherwise....the secret name isn't secret?" Terra is guessing at this point, she hadn't quite had the chance to ask anyone about it, but it makes sense not to share a secret name. "So should I call you Lucy? Karolina? Or Singing Beetle?"
Terra does have that infectious childish glee and wonder about her, which tends to make her fun to be around, for some. Other might find her insufferable, but to each their own. "YES!" Terra says with a clap of her gloved hands, "exactly! Flying next to the bird...wind in my hair, visiting the clouds! And it's oh so beautiful too!" Grinning widely as Karolina notes Terra's lack of coldness, she strikes a pose and asserts, "I am the Champion of..." but then recalling she needs to keep some things secrets, she falls back on good all, "Good and Justice! So I don't get cold...or hot...well, I'm kinda friends with the Earth, maybe it's part of it. Temperature doesn't bother me. I like it all."
"Well now you've seen me!" Terra lifts one arm in triumph, before helpfully explaining, "because I'm not invisible!" She then lowers her hand and extends it towards Karolina, "my name is Terra! What is yours?" Shaking her head vehemently, Terra streses, "I don't think badly of anyone until they deserve it!"
"You know singing beetles!? I didn't know beetles could sing!" Terra looks utterly amazed as she shakes hands with Karolina, and a moment later, she giggles, "you're not supposed to give your secret name, only your codename, because otherwise....the secret name isn't secret?" Terra is guessing at this point, she hadn't quite had the chance to ask anyone about it, but it makes sense not to share a secret name. "So should I call you Lucy? Karolina? Or Singing Beetle?"
For that matter - once the hand was shaken, Karolina might seem a little warmer than most. She was essentially a living solar energy battery, so yeah. The handshake was a bit warm. "The champion of Good and Justice - I mean, I've heard worse superhero names," says Karolina, drifting back away from Terra after the handshake. "Or Terra! I guess that makes sense with the rock thing," says 'lina, kinda giving her hand a little brush to the side. 
 
From up here, the bands music was a little muted, but for the most part, people seemed to be okay with the two drifting up above the concert. There might even be a photo or two snapped. The band themselves? A little jazzed, that apparently (in their lead singer's optimistic mind), they were attracting superhero fans. Possibly cute ones - which is something that was not really lost on 'lina. 
 
"Mine is actually, truely Karolina Dean - at least - uh," she pauses a moment, bringing up a hand to kinda scratch the side of her nose. "I think it is. My parents were kinda... evil aliens and things, so maybe I have a cool name like Glorgixa, or something like that. My friends call me 'lina, and I would... be okay if you called me that too." 
 
A pause. "And you're really, really pretty, Terra - it's wonderful to meet you," she says, her tone of voice a little sheepish. As if to kinda brush over that statement, she lunges into the talk of singing beetles. "Well, they're actually a band - and they call themselves the Beatles. Kinda like those guys down there - they're called... um... Sparks and Fitz, I think. They're kinda doing indie music. The Beatles did what's called rock and roll," she says, her smile springing back up to her lips. "...no pun intended."
Wearing her gloves, Terra misses out on the fact Karolina is warmer to the touch than a regular human, unless she's hot enough to be felt through gloves. "Oh no! My codename is Terra! I'm not telling my secret name, because it's secret, you see?" Terra smiles brilliant, quite proud of herself for maintaining a secret name as something secret.
When Terra hears of Karolina's parents she blinks and looks shocked, "oh no! Did you have to defeat your own parents because they were evil and you had to fight for all that is justice and good?" Terra slows down a bit when Karolina mentions what her friends call her, thinking it over, before saying "I accept! I shall call you 'Lina!" A moment later and Terra's violet eyes light up brightly as she squees, "that means I'm your friend! Doesn't it? We're friends? Yay! You're my second friend, I'm getting good at this making friends thing!"
Flattered for being pretty, Terra blushes a little and grins sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head, "thank you, 'Lina, you're prettier!" But when the conversation diverges back to music, Terra nods, before calling out, "I can do rock and roll too! Look!" And then she starts flying away, before doing a roll with her rock. Once upright again, she turns towards Karolina and cries out, "ta-da!" Her arms held outstretched.
"That's good, yeah - I guess if you're a hero, you gotta keep that sort of thing a secret, because..." Karolina kinda pauses, her eyes drifting earthward again as she considers. A beat - and her eyes lift up to glance towards Terra's own. "Well, because villains can... do stuff to you if they know your name, I think?" says 'lina. Of course, being an essentially homeless teen with most of her friends being other homeless teens, she was a little less protective of such things. 
 
'lina looks a bit pained when there was the mention of defeating her parents. "Well. Yeah, we kinda did. I was with a group, you see - and we all had evil parents, it turns out. So we ended up..." 'lina draws her tongue over her lips. "Well, never mind, I can tell you about that later? It's kinda a downer, is all," she says, putting a smile on her face again. While Karolina couldn't really blush when she was getting her rainbow on, her face was featuring more reds and yellows and other 'warm' colours at the squeeing and especially at the pretty bit. "Really? Thank you so much - and you're having trouble making friends? I um... you said you were from the Earth, right?" she asks, kinda tilting her head to the side. 
 
Only to burst into giggles at the playing around. "Well. That's kinda like rolling a rock, but rock and roll is... well, it's kinda like the music those guys are playing. Just with more guitars, drums, and faster music, you know? You can dance to it," she says.
Terra considers for a moment, not quite sure how a villain might hurt her if he knew her secret name. But that's largely a result of not yet knowing what the secret name is for, as of right now, she only know it exists and it's good to have. It also just so happens that she already had one!
Whether she's ready for it or not, Karolina has to contend with Terra surfing her rock all the way to her, and latching her arms around her in a tight embrace, "I'm so sorry you had to face the tragedy of defeating your own parents because they were villains! I'm so sorry! It's too cruel!"
When she finally lets go of the tight embrace, assuming Karolina didn't evade it altogether, Terra looks with confusion at Karolina, not wanting to commit to anything, she finally just nods at the question. When her example of rock and rolling is doubted, Terra jumps once to draw attention, before pointing down at her rock, "it's a rock! And I rolled with it! Rock and Roll! Follow?" Terra looks at Karolina intently, wondering if there was a comprehension problem, before the concept is explained better. "Oh! It's music!" She nods a few more times to show understanding even when she doesn't quite understand, not wanting to appear stupid to her new friend.
Karolina kinda, well. For various reasons, 'lina wasn't about to turn down an embrace. And that red colouring? Starts to kinda diffuse throughout her aura in general, the young woman nonetheless bringing up her hands to return said embrace with a ~squeeze~ about the midsection. Keep in mind, however, that Karolina Dean had noodle arms, and one imagines that Terra was probably a bit more robust in that regard. 
 
"It's... okay," says Karolina, voice a bit strained due to the embrace, the Majesdanian drawing in a deep breath after that hug, bringing up a hand to kinda fan her own face. "Whew," she says a bit. "I... thank you for that," says 'lina. She certainly didn't feel down anymore. 
 
Awkward? Maybe a little, especially at the weird look that Terra was giving her. "So, uh, Terra," says 'lina. "What brought you here to the park today? I kinda came because I knew those guys were playing, and free concerts are kinda my thing now - I ~love~ music," she says, giving the other young woman a smile. 
 
A smile that wavers when Terra tries to catch her attention, 'lina nodding her head herself. "It was a cute joke - I mean, it's adorable in a sense?" says the teen, kinda tilting her head a bit to the side. "Are you saying you've never heard rock and roll music? You've ~got~ to at least listen to the Beatles, I have some cd's back at... ..." 'lina bites her lower lip. The secret base with Molly. "I can get some CDs - a little old school, but... it's still good. Their music makes me so happy - do you like music at all?" she asks.
Terra seems pleased enough about the embrace, she was showing support for her new friend, and she accepted it, so all is well. They are certainly officially friends according to Terra. Asked why she came, Terra nods in the direction of the happening below. "I heard the music...and I saw the people moving funny, and I got curious! It seems like it could be fun...maybe sometime when I get all secret looking, I will try it myself!" Terra asserts it as if she just assigned herself a glorious quest of sorts.
"A joke?" Terra looks confused, perhaps she wasn't joking after all and just outright took rock and roll at the most literal possible meaning. "I will love to hear your singing beetles, it should be fun!" Terra certainly looks radiant and fascinated enough that one could say she might like music, but instead of furthering the conversation she perks up and announces, "oh no! There's an avalanche coming! I need to help some mountain climbers!" Just like that, without even a 'goodbye' she jets out of there on her rock. Apparently the rock can pick up speed.
Category:Log