Xaviers!

"Natalie's gonna be pretty excited about that." she tries to maintain her smile and not feel too anxious about the whole thing.

"Maybe she can design your costume, then." She chuckles.

"Oh god, there's costumes?"

"What, did you think I was joking about spandex?"

"I mean, it's not really spandex. It's this crazy stuff with an awful polysyllabic name that can shift with you."

"Well costume makes it sound like... you know, fancy. Like there's masks and accessories."

"Some of them do. I saw the old pictures of the X-Men. I'm not sure if a shapeshifter needs a mask, though. I don't use one on missions."

"Well yeah. Although I think people here would consider this a mask, yeah?" she asks, pointing at herself.

"Depends on who you're really fooling, I guess."

"I don't know. It's... I don't really think of it as fooling anybody unless I'm doing it intentionally? I just am who I am and even if I didn't feel like I have to hide I'd change how I look just for fun. It's like... picking clothes. But I know that people here see it differently. Your shape is important enough to you that you're at least a little concerned about not being quite where you 'should' have been, right? I guess I just don't want to upset anybody. But then I'm also not sure if my 'normal' shape is something that I should wear around all the time..."

"Well I'm not accusing you of anything, aye? Just something to think about now that you've got... context for it again."

"No, yeah, I get it... I mean, kinda. And I know there's a couple people here who don't exactly look like everybody else either, but... well, I guess nobody here really knows what we look like, right?"

"I'm not going to say I wouldn't have freaked out if you walked over here looking like the one in the cells without so much as a how-do-you-do."

"And maybe I do put more importance on something that feels like 'me' but perhaps that's not looking like her for you anymore?"

"You've lived as a mutant for a good part of a year. Maybe 'alien' isn't you so much as 'outsider' is."

"And for every outside there's an inside."

"Well that's what I mean... I'd try just being myself occasionally, but if it's gonna spook people... I'm already ashamed enough for my people without that, you know?"

"I get what you're saying. I'll admit that trying for a 'real me' is... well, a choice for me. Including, if I'm honest, deciding what the 'real me' is."

"It should be a choice for you, too."

"Yeah... Maybe once it won't give everybody a heart-attack."

"And if you decide that's not the 'real you' either, that's fair."

"I mean, honestly, the real me is a whole bunch of faces and shapes. And moods. I just figured people wouldn't want to see a Golaxian slime-beast eating breakfast."

"I'm not about to tell you how to be, aye?"

"Honestly, it makes me think a bit too."

"About who you wanna be?"

"Aye. Not like I have to meet expectations, at least here."

Shari nods. "I'm a fan of weird head stuff. You know, instead of hair." she says as her hair bunches together into about a dozen or so tentacles that flop down around her face."

"You've done that one before," she smirks.

"It's a good one! Does get you stared at though. At least outside of this place."

"I don't know if I'm a tentacle girl. Hair's nice to have."

"Well there's horns too or feathers or antennae or you mix and match them. Like so." she says and the tentacles separate into hairs again while two big feathery moth-like feelers sprout from her temples and backwards across her head.

"I think for now I'm just going to take it as a given that you're a little more adventurous than me," she chuckles.

"That's fair." she chuckles before getting a bit more serious look on her face. "Hey, uhm... Thanks. For taking this so well and all."

"Well I... I still saw inside you, Shari. Some things you can't fake."

"And if I'm wrong well... I don't want to be wrong."