Kayla Chao (mathnerd) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2011-01-19 18:17:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | 2009-08-07 |
Park shenanigans!
Who: Kayla and Oz
When: Midafternoon
Where: The park!
What: Hanging out? Or something.
The weather had finally broken, and Kayla couldn't have been happier about it. She'd been tired of the rain, even though she'd been able to keep herself busy for hours on end taking apart and then putting back together most of the household appliances and her brother's computer. When he finally pulled himself from the office and turned it on, he'd find that she'd even tweaked it a little bit for him so it'd run faster. Kayla figured she'd save the bill for when he noticed. Not that she thought it would happen anytime soon; he was a workaholic like their dad, and the rain basically gave him plenty of excuses to hang out in the office at all hours and do... whatever it was that he did. Kayla had no idea what the workings of his business required and she had no desire to learn, either - though she was appreciative of what said business had provided for her family.
They'd been lucky that they weren't in one of the flooded areas and thus hadn't had to relocate at all; once the day dawned bright and sunny, Kayla decided to take advantage of the beautiful day (and the fact that her parents were still on vacation) to go hang out in the park. She'd seen the news that morning of the girl who'd died and the other girl who'd gone missing; if her parents had been home and seen either of those headlines, it was a sure thing that she would've been chained to the house.
But she wasn't so that meant it was time to escape while the escaping was good. Kayla packed herself some snacks and a good book, then headed out to the park. The ground was still a little damp, so she solved the problem by appropriating a picnic table for her needs. The top was dry, so Kayla stretched out on her stomach atop the table and pulled out her book.
While the rain had not kept Oz inside, it had put a bit of a damper on his usual runs. One could not really take laps around the field when the field was a half-flooded mess. Slipping and falling flat on his face was not fun. Unless he was in otter form and then it was a load of fun. But running around as an otter did not give his muscles the stretch that they needed. Today, after he had helped everyone settle back into the house and done his part to help clean up the mess, he had taken off to get some running done around the park. There was always that bit of pent-up energy left over after the full moon despite having been awake for most of the night and his needed to get out. Since most everyone else was busy running around off the paths and jumping off of trees beat throwing a baseball off the side of the house. That and he had been forbidden from doing that after he accidentally put the ball through a weaker part of the wall.
Twenty minutes of running though, and he was ready for a break. He could go for way longer but why bother? He was going to start up with football camp soon, before classes started, and then he would get a bigger workout than he had at any point in his life. Oz figured that maybe he could take it a little easy for a bit of time. That and he had just spotted someone that he recognized as familiar. Not someone that he was immediately familiar with because... oh what was her name? Kayla something? Yeah that was it. Now why did he know her name and face and, eh, no clue where it was coming from past something that he had seen or heard. Oz was not really good with remembering people. But that in her hands? That was not typical fun reading. That was like, school work or something. Whatever it was was way beyond his understand. “You do know that school hasn’t started yet, right?” Oz asked as he came to a stop in front of the table. “And that means you shouldn’t be trying to overload your brain yet. Or at least, that’s what it means to most of us.” She looked like she was around his age so either she was a high school senior or starting in on college. Oh no, did they expect them to start their readings early? Oz had not even bothered figuring out where the campus bookstore was yet.
Kayla was nose-deep in theoretical physics when she felt the presence approach; looking up, she saw a vaguely familiar boy in front of her. It took her a second, but the name hit. Oz. Like Wizard of. Or Australia. She didn't dwell too long on why he was familiar; her mother had her at so many charity events and volunteer opportunities that she was acquainted with a lot of the locals in town, despite the fact that they lived on the outskirts and she'd gone to private schools her entire life.
She grinned up at him, glancing back down to the book. "This isn't schoolwork," she said with a chuckle. "It's fun. All about how stuff we think is impossible might actually work using physics - teleportation, force fields, time travel, stuff like that." She frowned thoughtfully. "And also stuff like telepathy and psychokinesis - I guess that makes it fairly obvious that the book predates last May." Because telepathy and psychokinesis were kind of real now. Or had been real the entire time and had just now come to light as being real for most of the world, at any rate. "It's really cool, though." She was just... not going to mention the summer study program she'd done. "How's it going?"
Fun? What? “I think that maybe your definition of ‘fun’ is a little skewed,” Oz remarked before he’d had time to think the statement through. So there were people who were good at the whole school thing. He was not one of them. He was the opposite of one of them. He had gotten through school on mostly good luck and, okay, a few helping hands from the coach and a lot of help from tutors. Even the idea of books like that being fun made him want to go play a game of Madden. “Though I guess that if you think it’s cool then that’s your thing. Good for you.” Oz was pretty sure that if he so much as attempted reading that book then his brain would explode. Or try really hard to explode. He was guilty of thinking of people who thought that sort of thing was fun, like Kayla apparently, as brains. Sometimes he had picked on them in school if they became the easy target of the group for the day. Was not all that proud of it, but he had. Maybe it was a good thing that Kayla, he was more certain that was her name now, had not gone to school with him. “So, Kayla - that’s your name right? I feel like it is but I’ve been wrong on names of people I went to school with - is this really what you do for fun? Oh and I’m good, just out for a run.” His mind finally caught up and noticed that hey, there had been a question asked. Answering it was good manners.
"Different strokes for different folks," Kayla said easily, laughing. "It's not my only definition of fun, just one of them." Most might not know if they only went by the physics book in her hands - but there were others who'd be surprised to know she could even read. Those friends were primarily the club rats she saw when she went out - and only when she went out. She had the friends with whom she did her physical things like running and climbing and roughhousing, and the friends she went shopping with, and the friends she went and watched physics documentaries with. Kayla had... a wide circle of friends. Just that most of them saw the well-coiffed and manicured teen and immediately thought rich ditz. Their loss.
"Yep, I'm Kayla," she confirmed. "You're Oz, right? We didn't go to school together, but I feel like we've seen each other around here and there." Such was the way of a small town; even if you didn't go to school with the local kids, you still typically ended up knowing them. More or less. "I've just been meaning to do a bit more reading lately," she said. "Non-school reading, that is. It's a gorgeous day to be outside, though, and I didn't want to miss out, so here I am." She marked her page and set the book aside, sitting up on top of the picnic table. "Later," she said conspiratorially, leaning forward a little as if imparting a great secret, "I'm going to go climb the jungle gym." It was of fairly epic proportions, with lots of fun things to climb on.
Oz supposed that people could define fun in multiple ways. Hell, he thought that playing a good game of football was every bit as fun as helping out on the reservation for the weekend or cleaning up the river was. Not to mention getting a chance to go sliding around in the mud on his belly with his family. So okay, maybe it depended on the situation. Though his mind was still finding it to be a serious stretch to come anywhere near defining that sort of book as ‘fun’. Unless it was a joke. No one would pretend to be reading a book like that on the off-chance that someone would ask them about it. Geez, self, a little bit of sense now and again would be nice wouldn’t it? Just because most people thought he was dumb - for admittedly good reasons - did not mean he was always completely lacking in mental functions. Just mostly.
“Yep, that’s me. And you probably have since I grew up here and my family runs the best bakery in town.” Now that was not even his idea of bragging, it was just true. Snow White Sweets had the best bakers and such in the area; mainly his mom, but he supposed that Calista and himself helped these days. “That’s not even for school. Alright, your brain probably makes mine look like a pea or something, gotta give it to you there.” A grin did break out on his face at the mention of playing on the jungle gym. He had not been able to really have fun on one of those since he outgrew the ability to dangle without his feet brushing the ground at the age of like, thirteen. “Now the jungle gym’s good,” he granted, putting one foot on the bench of the table to lean his elbows on. “But if you really want to have fun then it’s the swingsets. Go as high as you can and then jump. It’s sort of just like flying. With the possibility of a sprained ankle or broken arm added in sure, but half the fun’s in the risk right?” And for people like him broken bones were hardly any worry at all. But she smells human.
There weren't too many bakeries in Scarlet Oak, and fewer still that could claim to be the best, but that helped cement his identity in Kayla's mind. "Oh, that's right," she said. "My mom is obsessed with your family's chocolate croissants. I get like, half of one before they're gone." Not that it was a bad thing necessarily. Kayla had a tendency to get a little fluffy if she wasn't careful about her sugar intake and got lazy about putting in workout time.
She shrugged and looked down at the book again. "It doesn't read like a textbook or anything," she said. "Just a guy talking about how all the movie stuff might actually - or not, depending - be possible. I can loan it to you when I'm done, if you want to check it out for yourself." She was all about sharing her passions to anyone even remotely interested. "Oh, the swingsets, is it?" she said with a grin. "I like to swing, but I think I'll pass on the jumping part." When one was cursed with super-rare blood the way she was, one learned to be careful when it came to potentially injuring stunts. It would be her luck to land on something sharp and puncture an artery. Sure, she donated to a blood bank to have her own supply on hand just in case, but she'd prefer never to have to use it.
Chocolate croissants were a pretty big seller, but they were not something that Oz ever made. His mom liked making them and what she liked doing she got to do with pretty much no questions asked. It was her bakery after all and all that the Snow kids knew they learned from her. “She can come buy as many as she wants. My mom loves the regulars.” Everyone. Mrs. Snow loved pretty much everyone. With as many kids as she had she pretty much had to be a people person.
“And thanks for the offer, but I don’t really read outside of what they make me for school.” Oz had no shame in this. He did not like academic things, he liked sports and baking and that was pretty much it. Picking a major eventually was going to be nearly impossible and probably end up being something related to sports or business since he already knew those things. “Yeah... lot of people give up on jumping when they get older, but I still think it’s fun.” And again, getting hurt was never something that Oz worried about. It might be near impossible for him to actually make himself worry about his own safety, and it would take concentration he just did not feel like giving. “Though just swinging is good for giving your brain a break. Even if it’s fun reading.” Fun reading. Just saying that felt weird.
Kayla didn't mention that her mother probably had the help pick up the croissants for her; Kayla was comfortable enough with the help because she wasn't all that keen on cleaning a house of that size on her own, but she'd never really seen the need to have people go out and fetch things for her. Not having to grocery shop was nice, but she'd done it before and didn't have a problem with it. Besides, it was fun getting out and meeting people - all people, not just the types of people who hung out at charity functions and debutante balls. Boring.
"It's cool," she said. "It's not for everyone, I'll give you that." It always hurt her a little to hear people say they didn't like to read, but she wasn't going to comment on it. It wasn't her place to decide how people should live their lives, even if it seemed a little sad to hear someone didn't do any recreational reading, magazines not included. "It's fun," she agreed, "but I think I'd have to stay a little closer to the ground. You know, they have these rides all over the country called Skycoasters that are just like huge swings. You wear this body harness, kind of like a hammock thing, and get hooked in face down, then they pull you up and back to the top of the pole and you pull a ripcord and swing. The biggest one in the world is in Orlando, near Disney World, and it's three hundred feet high. We did it once on vacation. It was amazing. You just fall straight down until the line has no more slack, then swing. It's unreal. There's one in Muskegon, too. I've been planning to go back and do that one but I never get around to getting a group together."
She grinned at him. "Good for giving my brain a break, is it?" she asked. "Does that mean we should go swing now?"
And reading was not for Oz. He knew how and he figured that if that was enough to get him through school and life then it was enough. Plus it meant that he could check the scores online for games that he missed because of other activities. Yes, Oz believed in the internet because of sports. Otherwise the computer that he had left in Otter and Delsin’s room was only used for schoolwork. Something that he would never admit to anyone. Boys his age were supposed to have, like, memorized most of the porn sites on the net. Oz had never been able to care enough. Magazines existed and hey, there were real girls everywhere. Scarlet Oak and Ann Arbor were particularly blessed with some of them and he had been a football star.
“Now that sounds like fun,” Oz approved after listening to Kayla talk about a Skycoaster. Oz was all for thrilling things and that one sounded like it needed to be experienced. “And if you ever get a group together, then let me know, I’d love to do that. Or help get the group. I know a few people who might think it’s fun.” Could younger kids do it? If so then Delsin would be all over that and his mom was always pestering him to spend more time with his kid brother. “But for now yes, we should go swing.” It had turned into an ‘us’ sort of thing because Oz had decided he was done exercising, had nothing else to do, and hanging out with other people always trumped being alone. He stepped away from the table, hands in the pockets of his shorts as he rocked back. “If you can handle seeing me jump. Don’t think I can swing without doing that until I’m so old my bones would break.” Could that happen to a were? Oh I hope not.
"Oh, I totally will," Kayla said, thinking she might do exactly that. A lot of her friends from the private school she attended were gone each summer, dashing around Europe or something ridiculous, and were frequently unavailable to hang out with her. Not that she'd minded too much before now - she was usually either going with them for a part of their vacations or out traveling with her own family. This summer, however, had been the Light of May and Scarlet Oak's subsequent transformation into some kind of supernatural hot spot, and Kayla had been fascinated enough to turn down any vacations in favor of sticking around town to see what happened. But it also meant that she didn't have too many local friends. She'd met some here and there - the one kid in the grocery store, the people she'd met at the party he'd invited her to, things like that. But Oz surely knew most of the locals from school, at least, and could totally make a group happen, she was sure.
She grinned and got her things together, slinging her bag over her shoulder as she hopped down from the picnic table's surface. "Okay, I'm cool for some swinging," she agreed easily enough. "I think I'll be okay watching you jump as long as I don't have to do any jumping myself. I like my ankles the way they are - whole and unbroken." The thought of being so old that bones would break even from a little jump made her want to cringe, though. "Maybe by the time you're that old, they'll have come up with new playground cushioning technology that'll prevent it," she suggested. "Then you could swing until you died."
...oh right, ankles could snap from jumping if you landed wrong. Or if you were not stronger than normal. These things were what Oz always forgot about regular people, they really were. And totally why he had gotten in so much trouble that one time he had took Otter out. His mom had been soooo pissed at him for putting his brother ‘into danger’s way’. Because the little guy did not have the same limits as the rest of the family. Surely Oz was not the only one who went and forgot things like that - except yes, he really was, everyone else paid way better attention. “I’ll be able to jump and swing until I die without all that stuff,” Oz said proudly as he walked over and picked the highest swing. Even with that his feet were probably going to drag against the ground way too much. The curse of being as tall as he was. For reasons like this he even wished that he was shorter; for a grand total of two seconds. “I’m a were, my body will take beatings way longer and way better than it has any right to. Can’t tell you how relieved the family doc was when the Light of May rolled around and he finally had an explanation for why none of us had gotten killed at age three or something.” The idea that maybe Kayla was from one of those families who stood against supernaturals, like some rich ones in the area did, never even crossed his mind. Oz did not get people hating supernaturals so he pretty much ignored it.
Kayla's parents weren't anti-supernatural, not by a long shot. They just didn't want Kayla hanging around with any supernaturals, particularly the ones for whom her blood would be very interesting. Typically, that was the exact thing Kayla usually did - like seeking out vampires at Heme with Domina or even hanging around Domina herself, who was also a were. She didn't really do it because her parents had said no; she just had so much curiosity about the supernaturals and really, why shouldn't she try to find the answers? From what she'd seen the vast majority of supernatural beings were just like regular humans with jobs and families and obligations. They could just do really awesome stuff like turn into animals or do magic or control fire.
"That's awesome," she said as they reached the swings; she was fairly short and didn't have to worry so much about her feet dragging, so she just grabbed the swing next to him after setting her bag down out of the way. She backed up as far as the swing would allow to give herself a decent start, planning to slowly work her way up to decent height - pretty much the way one had to do it when swinging. "I'll bet that was a relief," she agreed with a grin. "What kind of were are you?" she asked curiously. "If you don't mind me asking, that is." She wasn't sure if supernatural people were touchy about being asked question after question the way she could sometimes do if she got really curious. Laurent hadn't minded, but he was just one of many, after all.
It was pretty awesome, that was about right, but when Kayla said it Oz just grinned at her. Because hearing other people voice his awesomeness was just one of those things that made any day better. He could have had to count the stairs a hundred times before he left the house and the word ‘awesome’ used to describe anything about him or what he was would get rid of the heavy feeling that left. “Yeah, it totally was, though some of my friends who are the same had already known. We can smell each other.” Like nothing else. Weres and vampires were always way easy to identify. For him at least. “And I am an otter. I know, hard to imagine all of this turning into a long, skinny thing but it happens.” Fairly often too. Nothing beat spending a hot summer afternoon splashing in the river with the family. “My family is full of otters, so chances are that if you see one in the river or ponds that it’s actually one of us.” Reaching a good height for the moment he stopped pumping his legs. “How about you?”
"That's cool that you didn't have to hide it from everybody," Kayla said. The idea of being a secret species - that only others with similar abilities could figure out - was fascinating. And trying to imagine Oz as an otter was... well, pretty funny. "I wish someone could explain to me how that works," she said, eyeing him curiously. One could practically see the wheels turning in her head. "I mean, you've got so much more mass right now. Where does it go when you're in otter form? I mean, I know the principle of conservation of mass doesn't quite apply in this case since humanoid beings aren't really closed systems, but you all the mass you lose when you're in animal form has to go somewhere. Convert into a different type of particle or be stored somewhere or something, otherwise you wouldn't be able to shift back." Anytime she brought that up, she usually got a shrug and the infinitely unsatisfying answer of 'magic.' She wanted to know the physics of the supernatural. She realized she was rambling and switched tracks. "What about me?" she asked, swinging as well - though not quite as high. "Oh, am I anything special? No, just plain human here." If he smelled anything unusual, it would only be her rare blood type. Thanks to Domina for confirming that for her.
How what - oh, how that worked. Yeah Oz had absolutely no clue how that part worked. What he understood was that he could turn into an otter or halfway between the two and everything else was pretty much lost on him. And he had no shame in owning up to that. Where did all that was him go? Oz had no clue, he just knew that it came back when he wanted it to. And that was what mattered. If one day he tried to change back and ended up skinnier or shorter than he had been before he would have been pissed. “Alright, brainy Kayla girl,” Oz teased with a grin, “you lost me around the word ‘convert’.” Oz just did not do the smart thing. He had gotten through school and was pretty sure that people should have been happy to get that out of him. He was not trying to be some sort of overachiever here. He just wanted to get through, play football and help out with the family business. “Nothing wrong with plain human, that’s what my mom is. Sometimes I wished that... okay, no, that’d be lying.” Oz loved being an otter. “Tell you what, if you don’t make my brain break with big words then I’ll be the nice guy and let you come to my family’s next full moon. We’re not as big on it as the Diaz’s, that’s the Chileans for you, but it’s still cool. Big experience, all that. Humans are even allowed.” A grin to let her know that he was still just teasing.
Kayla grinned. "If you stuck with it up to 'convert', you got most of it," she pointed out. She wondered if he wasn't downplaying his intelligence a little bit - there could be a big difference between 'couldn't' and 'wouldn't.' Or 'didn't want to.' It was no big deal either way, but Kayla was the curious type. "I'm okay with plain human," she said with a shrug. "I suppose if I want, I can always take up witchcraft." Which she might actually do, if she ever put aside the math and physics books long enough to add it to her plate. If something could be learned, Kayla didn't doubt she could learn it, with enough work. Too bad one couldn't learn how to shapeshift. She wondered if there was a spell for that. She laughed at his offer as they swung, going a little higher to feel the wind through her hair. "Sometimes I can't help it," she said, "but I'll try to keep the big words to myself if you really want. That would be really awesome if I could hang out with you guys - I don't want to impose, though." She didn't know who the Diazes were, apart from apparently being Chilean, but she assumed they were also a shifter family.
Truth was, Oz was not a complete idiot. He just did not really try all that hard when it came to the academic side of things. Partially because he was lazy and then also because it took up time that he could put towards football or helping at the shop or helping out with the nature club. If he had decided to put his brain to work he probably could have done a lot better than ‘you can pass’ but that was the sort of what-if that he was never going to think about. Because he liked his life just the way that it was. Simple. “That’d be cool if you wanted. I think one of the shamans in my tribe was a witch but I’m not sure, no one ever calls it that because witchcraft used to mean something bad for us.” Dark magic, maybe. “If you come hang definitely keep them down. Wouldn’t want the family to think I was getting too smart or something.” Then they might expect it of him and be in for one of the biggest disappointments ever. “And it’s not imposing if you’re invited. I just invited you. Clears it right up.”
"What tribe?" Kayla asked curiously. Not that it would mean much unless he was part of one of the more well-known tribes. She had not made as in-depth a study of history, either American or European, in school as she had math and sciences. She'd guessed he was Native American at first glance - if he wasn't full-blood, it was close enough to it that the genetics were still strong. "I'll definitely come," she confirmed. Reaching into her back pocket, she pulled out her iPhone. "Got a phone number or email?" she asked. "We can trade info so you can let me know when your family's going to do your thing and I'll totes be there." That was really super exciting; she'd never hung out with weres on the full moon. And since they were obviously all born weres, she wasn't afraid. Also? Otters. So cute.
“Oh, we’re from the Ojibwe... Chippewa,” Oz replied proudly. He had always been extremely proud of his heritage and never passed on the opportunity to share any bit of it with others who were interested. “My family’s been the guardians of our branch for a really long time. Sure we’re just otters but that’s still a lot better than nothing. And my little bro, Otter, he’s an earth elemental and that’s a really big deal so my family’s sort of really into the tribe.” Even if they were not living in Mt. Pleasant on the res because of some disagreements or something that had happened. He had had no part in it and still loved going there whenever he could to be involved with everything. “And yep!” Pulling out his own phone, Oz gave Kayla his number and waited to punch hers into his contact list. “You’ll totally be in the top five for who gets told first when the next full moon rolls around.” And he would remember.
"That's cool," Kayla said, then paused. "Wait a second. Your entire family are were otters, except your brother the earth elemental and he's named Otter?" She grinned, tickled by that information. "That's awesome." Otter at least in name, if not physical form. She wondered briefly if that ever made him feel more or less included, even though being an earth elemental was awesome in its own right. She added his number to her phone, snapping a quick photo for the caller ID, then called his number. "There you go," she said with a bright smile. "Top five, that's awesome. You'll be the first person I call if I try to get a group going for that Skycoaster thing."
“Well his real name is Bimisi, but he hates that so it’s Otter,” Oz explained. He could have added something in about how his name was actually Jacy, but decided against it. There was a damn good reason that he went by his middle name instead of his first and it was totally because Jacy was a weird name and it would have ended in far too many fights at school. That he would have won because he was stronger, but then he would have done more time in detention... he totally understood why Otter liked going by that instead of his actual name. Despite their parents insistence on giving their kids traditional names for the most part the only ones who really appreciated the names were their parents. Or the ones like Delsin and Liseli who had names that could pass easy. “And sweet, hopefully you’ll be able to call me soon then because that’d just be too much fun to pass on.” Unless he was in football camp but that was a totally different story.
"If it's going to happen, it's definitely going to be before school starts," Kayla confirmed. "UMich classes don't start until September, so we've got a little time, but still. People'll probably have more time before we all have to start worrying about classes and studying and whatnot." She was not anticipating a lot of free time once classes started; she'd already tested out of a lot of her prereqs was getting right into her core classes for her major. It was going to be awesome, but there would likely be a lot of studying required. She glanced at her watch, frowning slightly. "Crap, I should probably think about getting home," she said regretfully. "It was cool seeing you again, Oz. Talk to you later?"
Worrying about classes and studying. There was something that Oz was not used to. He would probably worry the same amount in university as he had in high school, which was to say not that much at all. Except when a big test came up and he had to cram with the help of one of the tutors in the student center. “Oh yeah, definitely. Either when you get that group together, the full moon comes or of course, totally random reasons.” He grinned and gave a wave. He was not heading home just yet, content to sit on the swing for awhile longer. A nice, innocent and soothing activity where he did not even break a sweat. Plus there were no good games on tonight so there was no point to claiming the television. “See ya Kayla.”
Who knew? Kayla might end up being one of the tutors on the student center; they might run into each other without even meaning to. She planned to be as involved in on-campus activities and services as she could without compromising her own schoolwork; it was fun and it looked good on résumés. Double win. "Totally random is good, too," she agreed wtiha grin and a wave, grabbing her stuff together. "See you later, Oz," she said. One final grin and wave for him and she was off, jogging back through the park towards her car.