Xaviers!

This one is on the house
This one is better than ever...

Will rested in the sauna, her eyes closed, listening to the music. This had been a weird couple days.

Everywhere she went, her mouth was running. She had commented to the lunch-ladies in the dining hall about the inadequacy of their mac and cheese, had told some gold-plated girl that she had missed a spot buffing out a ding, and had found himself, inexplicitly, walking the other way when he had seen ASHLIE coming down the hall. Not to mention the weird haziness of her memories after Nailah had come calling. She was clearly out of sorts.

Clearly, she was just over-stressed. It had been a stressful few days! So she found herself in the sauna, letting the warm moist air soften her clay up as she sat, just ever-so-slightly deforming. Warm, moist air was rejuvenating. Maybe she should just stay in here forever.


((open))

It wasn't too long, of course, before Will fell asleep, despite her best efforts. It was just so warm and comfortable in there, and she was strangely exhausted.

Falling asleep in the sauna was not good for her body integrity, as she continued to slump into her self. Neck collapsed into torso, limbs elongated and drooped. Her towel slipped to the floor, but there wasn't precisely anything in particular to cover with it at this time, anyway.

Dry heat would bake a Will solid, but wet heat just softened her up, resulting in a warm lump of soft clay lying there on the bench, snoring ever so slightly.

Janice walks in wearing a towel, looking around because there's music playing.

Then she finds a pile of wet, snoring clay.

"...er?"

"Hnnsnngga wha?" The blob said, abruptly stopping snoring and popping back into...well, humanoid form was stretching it, but closer to the Pillsbury Dough-Girl. "Mmawake, 'mawake."

"Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to...?"

She shook her head, shaking off some of the cobwebs. "Nno, not at all. C'min, c'min, public sauna, more the merrier, all that."

She looked at the new girl and blinked. "Haven't seen you around here before. 'M Will."

"Oh, are you... here a lot? I'm Janice."

"No, I meant, like, here. You know, the university and all.

I should come here more often, this is nice," she smiled. "Just let myself go some."

"Nice enough, I guess. I just wanted to relax a bit myself."

She sits down.

"So your thing is... being gooey?"

"My thing?" Will said, blinking for a minute. "But..."

"Oh! Of course. My 'thing'. Right! Very funny," she laughed, nodding. "My 'thing' is I'm made of clay, and can shift around into all sorts of different things.

Let me guess your 'thing' -- super strength, stamina, flight, the brave and heroic package?"

"...no?"

She blinks in confusion.

"My thing is ah... making things go wrong. I'd take that, though."

Will blinked back.

"Huh. Strange places. Sorry 'bout that, just...confusing you with someone I used to know. Forgive me; it's been a day and a half, and possibly even more than that.

Don't mind me. Tell me more about what it is you do?"

"Well I guess what the boffins call it is 'probability manipulation' but my aim isn't great so mostly it just causes accidents."

"But I can at least control when I do it, now."

"That's really neat. I can't do anything like that; I'm always amazed at the width and breadth of what people can do around here.

So, you could like, cause someone's car to break down? Or to trip and fall in the middle of a fight?"

"Maybe? If I get better at it."

"I mean I can technically do that now but I can't make it do something specific. It tends to be the stuff that's more likely to happen unless I really push."

"Oh. Well, that's still cool, and here's the best place to learn how to control stuff like that, right? Great teachers and all that. We should all get better by the time we're out. I did!"

"But you're... still here?"

The dough-girl nodded.

"Second time through. Well, as a student, at least. You should have seen what I could do the first time I was here."

"Did you get hit in the head and forget a bunch or something?"

"Mmm. Something like that. A bit of trauma out in the field caused me to have some temporary amnesia. Fortunately, the university found and bought me, so I'm back now. And even though I've got my mind back -- or half of it, anyway -- it never hurts to brush back up on the basics, wouldn't you agree?"

"Half seems... weirdly specific," she says with a confused look.

"You haven't met the other guy!" Will nodded, smiling. "A telepath sort of ripped me in two, sending me back here and keeping the other guy with her. He's probably in class now -- or should be. He's even more probably playing hookie, as he thinks going back through this stuff is a waste of time."

Will said this all very matter-of-factly, like this was the most common thing in the world.

"That sounds horrible," Janice replies, aghast.

"I know! Education is extremely important, and it's an opportunity to get a double-major! He really has to buckle down and fly right."

"I ah... meant the whole being ripped in half thing."

"Oh. Well, it'd probably be bad for most people, but I'm pretty flexible, you know? Like, if you found most people in here as a blob, you'd probably have to call the medics more than anything else. I tend to bounce back quickly.

Besides, he's all the jerky parts of me, so I think I got the better half of the deal."

"But didn't he get like... half your memories?"

Will shook his head. "I don't think so. I don't remember forgetting anything, at least," she grinned.

She was, presumably, fucking with Janice at this point.

"Okay look, just because I didn't get to go to some fancy Yank school and wear spandex..."

"Eh? Spandex is overrated. Not very comfortable, if I do say so myself," she said, tilting her head to look at Janice. "I didn't mean anything by it."

"I mean you've got to be winding the local girl up at this point, right?"

"Winding you up? If you're a clockwork girl, you probably should be down in the tech lab with Natalie.

I swear, everything I've said so far is 100% true. Dead serious. Cross my heart and hope to fry."

"I'm very sorry I offended you," she said, apologetically, gathering up her towel.

"If you feel like talking again, you can find me in the storage closet on the third floor of the dorms. Enjoy your sauna," she added as she headed for the door.

"What? No, it's just... I figured it was all the setup for that last joke, right?

"No, not at all. That'd be far too complicated a set-up for a joke. Everything I said was true."

"Some people really like telling shaggy dog stories, eh?"

"I mean, I suppose. I apologize for leading you on."

"Nothing to be sorry for. I just have to remember how solidly weird this place is sometimes."

"Well, I don't know if it's really that weird. I'm probably just an outlier.

I mean, your story is pretty normal, right?"

"Other than being literally jinxed for a few years?"