2013-02-22: Go Get A Roomie (Blindfold Edition)

There's not much to Blindfold's dorm room that isn't in any other person's dorm room. There's a startling lack of wall-hangings, no posters, no pictures, none of that stuff. Not even curtains, just the standard mini-blinds that came with the room to begin with. Clothes are laying about in haphazard places, pretty standard for a teenaged girl. A pile in the laundry basket by the foot of one of the beds, a few strewn about the unmade bed itself, and then a pair of wet pants hanging up in the doorway leading to the small bathroom.
The bedding is typical, dark blue on pale blue, though the covers have been thrown aside and not replaced. There's a pair of desks on opposite sides of the room, a shared nightstand, a couple of dressers, a single closet that's only half taken up with Ruth Aldine's crap. It's obvious which side of the room she's claimed because where her half ends... so does the mess!
The bathroom door is open, the lights are off, the blinds are drawn shut leaving the room rather dark. And then, biggest shocker, the dorm room door is also open! People are passing by in the halls, but none of them appear to even be looking into the room. The sole occupant, up until now, isn't even present. Whoever this 'Ruth' person was, she obviously wasn't here yet, or had just left considering that the door is still open.
Maybe she was nearby?
　
Serene is new to the school. She's new and unfamiliar with all of... THIS. She's new, unfamiliar, and isn't sure what to think about being in a school full of freaks. Is she really a freak too? She has at least accepted there's something different about her. She is willing to accept she MIGHT be a mutant... But mutations can be cured somehow, right? They can do all kinds of things with medicine these days. For now, however, her desperately wanting to return to being 'normal' aside, she is amongst others who are abnormal. And if there is anything Serene has experience with, it's learning how to fit in.
Right now she might be a giantess of sorts, having to duck to get through doors, clumsy with her limbs and her extended reach both due to having become huge AND because she is still a teenager and learning about her changing body and how to cope with it. She's used to fitting in though, so... If everyone else here is abnormal... She'll have to learn how to be abnormal. She doesn't think in those terms of course. She doesn't consciously realize she tends to change herself to fit the expectations of others. No, that's just a natural gift -- intuiting what other people expect and supplying it. She never really THOUGHT about how or why she does it.
But this is a very steep learning slope she's going to have to climb. She ducks her head to get through the doorway into the dorm she has been assigned to, after rapping her knuckles on the door itself to announce her presence, and calls out, "Hello? Anyone in here?" She looks around the room at the mess, arches an eyebrow, pushes her glasses up on her nose and heads towards the not-messy side of the room carefully, to set down her bags. She takes note of the wet pants hanging up and both eyebrows go up as she wonders what sorts of things her new dorm mate gets up to that result in such messes.
"No. Sorry. You should not. Because it will be bad. Pardon? Yes. It will end bad. That is what I said. Sorry. You will do it anyway. Yes. Sorry."
Ruth Aldine's voice comes from outside the doorway, just out of sight. Who's she having a conversation with? Judging by sounds... no one! She's talking to another girl, but the other girl doesn't seem to be talking, and then the dark-haired mutant turns away after the 'conversation' has finished and enters her room. The girl she had been having a 'conversation' with turns to her friend and mutters something along the lines of 'She is SO weird!' as they continue along the hallway.
And that will forever be Serene Nasir's first impression of Ruth Aldine: Standing in the door with a small wet stain on the lower-stomach of her baby-doll tee, without pants, standing there in her pal pink underwear with a pair of flip-flops on, holding a thick book, with a blindfold placed over her eyes. And yet, despite that, she's facing right in the much-larger girl's direction.
"You have arrived. I knew it would be soon. Yes. I was not aware you would be so big. Pardon? Because I did not see it." She steps into the room, turning slightly to pull the door closed behind her, shutting it quietly. Then she points at her own bed. "I do not want you to lay on this one. Sorry. You will break it. You break them all. You are Serene and I am Ruth. Ruth Aldine."
　
The brown-skinned girl pauses when Ruth enters, shifts the bag on her shoulder, and just blinks repeatedly at the other girl. She isn't sure what to conceal here. Clearly this girl is looking right at her and knows she's there. But she just as clearly has a blindfold on. Should she mask the pang of nervousness and self-consciousness that comes with pointing out her size? Maybe she can play it off. The mention of the beds and Serene breaking them is a bit startling and confusing, but she just glances at the bed that she is not to be laying on. "That's me! Nice to meet you, Ruth." Vision or no, Serene smiles in a friendly fashion. She pretends she doesn't know that her dorm mate is referring to Serene's height as she places a hand on either side of her chest and pushes inwards slightly. "Yeah, I developed early and fast. I'm still kind of surprised at how big I am," she teases.
Serene looks down at Ruth's lack of pants and the wet spot on the other girl's shirt and says, "So, uh, you spill something on yourself? And are you available to answer some questions I have about the school and all? If you have stuff to do, that's okay."
"Yes. It will be nice." Ruth murmurs as she moves towards the bed and snatches up a pair of jeans with perfect precision, considering she's supposed to be blind. She kicks off her flip-flops and begins to step into the pants, wiggling into them one leg at a time. "You were teased about it." She states, not turning her head in the dark-skinned teenager's direction. "They were not nice. But you overcame it. They hurt you, but you overcame them."
A quick zip and a button and now she's in a new, DRY pair of pants! "No. I am not the one who spilled it. She tilts her head first to one side, then the other, as if considering. "I am just the one who caught it. And I had to retrieve a book. They are right. You should never lend them."
The dark-haired girl turns and seats herself on her bed, scooting back to put her shoulders against the wall, dragging the large, featureless tome with her. She props a leg up, resting one hand on it, her chin on top of her knuckles as she 'looks' right at her new room mate. Her other hand flips open the book, revealing it to be wordless, just filled with raised dots. Braille.
"Pardon? Yes. No. ...Yes. I am available. I will answer your questions. Sorry. It is okay if you find me 'creepy.'"
　
Serene is unsettled less by Ruth's behavior, which is, while unusual, within the range of weirdness she has determined would be prevalent amongst abnormals. It's the personal comments, like this chick can see into Serene's head or read her history. Is that some kind of special ability? Serene unslings the bag from her shoulder finally and sets it down on the floor. No point in lying to someone like this, so she seats herself on the bed that is not quite the right size for someone of her scale but certainly big enough for her to sleep on if she doesn't roll around.
"Yes, they did. I was being attacked by some kids I knew just before that Summers guy showed up. Once you're identified as 'mutant', I guess logic and personal history go out the window." Serene shrugs. "But you seem to know that already. Honestly, while I'm not used to anyone here or all this... Mutant-business, and I don't think you seem very 'normal', I'm not one to talk. And you're nowhere near creepy, next to guys who will cut up a friend they've known for years just because she changes a little bit." Serene smiles and says, "So, at the risk of sounding like some kind of overly-cheerful cheerleader-type, let's just keep being weird together for now, and I'm sure we'll get used to each other."
Serene pauses for a moment and then adds on a question. "Are there any major social taboos I should be aware of amongst... 'Our people'? I've always been rather distant from supers of any kind, myself, so I don't know what's okay to talk about or ask about. Should I expect people to ask what my... Mutation is? Should I answer if they do?" She twists in her seat on the edge of the bed and leans forward on her hands. "You know things. You seemed to know things about me even though we just met. I want to fit in here, since it seems I'll be attending the school for awhile, but I don't know how. Can you please help me?"
"Hate. Ignorance. Fear. These will never go out of style. Did you know there are people who hate Superman? Wonder Woman? Not criminals, ordinary people." The fingers stop every time Ruth talks, halting in their side-to-side movements. They only resume when she isn't talking, or listening. Just as someone with eyes would probably not be able to engage in interactive conversation while reading, neither was Ruth able to concentrate both upon her book and Serene's words. So when Serene talks, she stops reading to listen.
"Cut you. Yes. My brother tried to cut me. Pardon? No. He cut our mother instead. Yes. I lived with my aunt afterwards. She accepts me." She almost smiles, but then an actual half-smile appears on her lips as she 'looks' at the taller mutant. "I can be weird by myself. No. Sorry. I would like to be weird together, too."
"I will try to help you. I will fail in some ways. Probably. Sorry. I can't see everything. Just what you see. And what you don't. Especially what you don't." The dark-haired, blindfolded girl pauses with a frown, trying to gather her fragmented thoughts and put them into more meaningful words than the garbled riddles that usually came out. "Ask. It is okay to ask. It is okay to answer. Yes. Here you are supposed to fit in, to not hide. You are to belong. Yes. You will. More than me. Do not use your powers on other mutants. I am bad at that one. I will try to help." A long pause. "But you will not fit in. Not if you are with me. I am... not liked."
　
Serene is slowly piecing together things... A little. She's still very unsure of herself, but she at least seems to be sub-consciously accepting more and more of her current reality. Ruth's answers are nodded to with a smile. "Sounds reasonable. And I fit in even with those who don't fit in. That was my 'thing' before. Being friends with everyone. People who ordinarily didn't like each other or wouldn't have interacted would hang out if I was there.--Not just to be with me or anything. I didn't mean to sound conceited. I wasn't 'popular', but... I don't know." The giant teenager picks up a pillow off the bed and hugs it to her belly. She's too big to hug it to her chest properly.
"I just want to get along with everyone. I know that's not always possible, but fitting in no matter what 'group' or 'clique' happens to be involved is my specialty. I just wish I had more experience fitting in with..." she trails off and rolls her shoulders a bit, hesitant to say the word but eventually managing to get over her weird embarassment and blurt out semi-quietly, "Mutants! You know? I just never ran into any before I changed. I have no idea what to do, what to say, how to act, how to be 'peacemaker' between different groups... I don't even know if there ARE different groups and social..." She raises a hand to gesture. "...'Thingies' amongst mutants."
Serene heaves a sigh and turns her eyes on Ruth with a lop-sided smile. "Well, I guess I'll find out. And I'll figure out a way to not ruffle people's feathers. I had friends like you before. It's not your fault that everyone else is so touchy about people who are different. I don't believe avoiding you just to improve my own chances of fitting in is either considerate of you or the correct thing to do. If other people don't like me hanging around you, they'll just have to cope."
So much for blending in seamlessly with a new social crowd. She still wants to fit in, but... She has never abandoned a friend before. And... "Wanna' be friends?" she asks cheerfully.
And she's not going to abandon this one.
Ruth lets the other girl talk. Sure, she could have interrupted and simply answered questions ahead of time as she sometimes did with her classmates and her previous room mate who had lasted all of two days before requesting a room transfer. After all, it was only considered the polite thing to do to let the other half of a conversation TALK. And she didn't really wanna scare away Serene too fast. She was one of the few people who didn't get scared, angry, or some mixture thereof whenever she started talking about things she just quite simply should know about.
"It's difficult when things are different." She says in simple agreement. "We are not different. Pardon? Mutants. We are the same, just different. We eat the same, talk the same, feel the same. We want the same things. Treat us the same. Yes. As people. You will be fine." She lifts her hand from her book, her chin still propped on her knee, to gesture at the door. "There are different groups. Geeks and jocks, cool kids and outcasts. Being a mutant is just like being anyone else. Except for the X-Gene. That is different."
But before she goes on and begins to confuse with her riddled sentences, she just smiles a small, tight-lipped smile and wiggles her head on her knee in a nod. "I could use a friend. Do you play checkers?" She points at her side of the closet. "I cheat. Sorry."
 
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