Xaviers!

As much as Miriam wants to help Will, for once she's made the decision to be careful and not keep running headfirst down an ill-conceived plan. She has an idea but she doesn't exactly trust her ability to execute it. Not yet. At least Sam was still off who knows where so she didn't even have to make up excuses for not asking her help. Of course that leaves her grasping around in the dark on her own which historically has not gone fantastic. So she spends the days tucked away in her room, sleeping like a corpse or going through Psychology textbooks, which doesn't really feel like it's helping her particular case but does manage to shed some incidental light on the various mental metaphors she's concocted or come across.

Her nights are spent wandering the grounds, usually the hedge maze, flexing her power in the absence of anybody else. She starts small, envisoning doors and archways in the walls of the maze, creating large openings of polished marble floors framed by hedges, quite literally walking her mind. Eventually she eases into larger ideas and sections and those still on or returning to campus hear rumors of walls and shingled roofs rising from the twisting passages of the maze at night. But come the morning light they always disappear without a trace, leaving the hedge maze exactly as it was before, much to Miriam's chagrin.

Eventually she settles in for an exercise in stubbornness. Black umbrella propped up against her shoulder, handle tucked between her knees, a book open on the grass next to her but gone mostly ignored and a large thermos next to it. But her attention is focused almost entirely on a single elaborate tile of polished wood that has sprouted from the ground, not taking her eyes off of it as the sun is coming up as f t might disappear if she did, which very well might be the case...


((open))

There a slight buzzing noise overhead and a purple-haired woman flies over, the doppler effect indicating that she's passed by. Then the sound returns, curiosity registering to Miriam's senses before the sound grows closer and the woman lands a short distance away, tracing Miriam's gaze to the object on the ground.

Miriam shows no indication of noticing Laura, her entire attention solely on the wooden tile until all the tension that had been building up in her shoulders releases and the wooden tile sinks back into the ground, fading from reality.

"Bloody hell...!" she curses under her breath, angrily slapping her palm down on the grass where the tile had been.

"Sorry, did I mess something up?" Laura apologizes, taking a step or two closer.

Miriam lets out an exasperated sigh.

"No... Almost wish that was it but no."

"What were you trying to do? Not that I could help, probably, but I'll listen."

"I've been... manifesting things from peoples' minds. Personality metaphors or archetypes or something. And if I could figure out how to make them stick around I could help a friend who really needs it right now. I've done it before, I know it's possible somehow but I just can't seem to do it."

"Trying to get into someone else's headspace and just relax there can be difficult," Laura says, thinking about the times she's tried to impersonate other people.

"Tell me about it, but this I pulled from my own mind and I still can't make it stick."

"At some point, the muscle has to relax, I guess. Doesn't make it any less frustrating through," she says, finding some place to lean as they talk.

"And I've done it before. I know it's possible."

"So what were you doing when it happened before?"

"I have no idea. It was... a night. Sleeping or drinking or going down on somebody are all pretty good guesses though."

Laura blinks, mostly trying to process the bluntness of the statement rather than being bothered by its content. "Any of that could have put you in the right frame of mind to make it work, I guess. Though that last really depends on the partner."

"That frame of mind being not having my wits about me? I'm afraid that's not really an option."

"Not what I meant, but it's hard to explain without it sounding like pop-psych 'zen' bullshit. And without giving you more information than you likely want."

"I've been pouring over psych textbooks from the library, so it's not like I haven't considered the amateur psych route. Less restrained is the tactful way of putting it but I've been there and that always seems to end in disaster."

"I prefer to think of it more as a 'sweet spot'. Not a matter of missing restraints, just hitting that near-perfect head space where it's just working."

"I just can't have any doubts when I do this. I'm..." she hesitates for a moment as she glances over at Laura. "...trying to cast a framework to keep my friend's thoughts ordered. There's so many ways it could go wrong, it has to be perfect when I bring it forth. I don't know I can do that while losing myself in the sweetspot of the moment. If that's even what enables it in the first place."

Laura makes a thoughtful noise, "Maybe working from your own imagination is harder. I know it's easier for me to replicate someone if I have them present or at least a picture of them." There's a brief moment of motion and she now looks like Miriam, albeit in Laura's clothes. She takes her glasses off and hangs them on the pocket of her jeans. Other than the clothes, she's damn close, though not perfect in the fine details.

"God I'm pale..." she mutters at Laura's imitation of her. She doesn't really take note of the imperfections, it's been a while since she's last seen a reflection of herself.

"But it's not imagination." she snaps out of staring at 'herself'. "I see these things, places, structures."

"So you have to be with someone to recreate what you see? I think I misunderstood."

"They're thoughts. If they're someone else's they obviously need to be in range for me to read their minds." Miriam says, beginning to sound a little aggravated.

"The problem is the constructs disappear if I stop... making them real or whatever it is that's happening. Except I need to know how to make them stick if I want to help Will."

Laura seems to be a good enough people reader that she recognizes the aggravation. She reverts to her normal self. "What exactly are you trying to recreate to help him? Maybe there's a clue there."

"Some kind of framework. He's very literal so maybe an actual bedframe or something. The actual physical shape's going to be, well, up to interpretation. But it should be something solid, something restrictive in the sense that guidance or...temperance is, but with enough of an outlet that there's a clear way of doing so. This all probably sounds very nebulous but I've never really put much of these thoughts into words. He's tearing himself apart by going in a million directions at once. I think I can help him if I can pour that into something that'll regulate it. Hell maybe he'll jive with sitting in a watercooler."

"So limits and boundaries, but a clear stop-out?"

"Basically. But none of that matters if I can't make it stick around without concentrating on it."

"Of course. Wish I could be of more help. Shifting and control I understand, but 'inside the brain' stuff is not my forte."

"I could probably use the break anyway. This isn't really getting me anywhere right now."

"Breaks never hurt. So what do you do when you're not materializing things in the hedge maze?"

"Screw up my life, mostly." she jokes, but it's so flat it's clear there's more than a grain of truth to it. "Get involved with the wrong kind of people in the right kind of clubs."

"There's a wrong kind of club? I thought they were all the right kind under the right circumstances."

"Right, I'd imagine you'd get along with most crowds, being able to adjust who 'you' are."

"Rarely," she shrugs, "Mostly it's about finding what's fun for me and whoever I happen to be with."

"You don't enjoy being somebody else?"

"Depends on why I'm being someone else. Sometimes it's just a tool, sometimes it's for fun like pranking someone, a couple of times it was because someone wanted me to be someone else for them. That's not much fun."

"Someone specific? That's disgusting..." she says, making a face.

"Exactly. But when you're a secondary school variation of stupid, and the person is cute..." She shrugs, "But then I started figuring myself out and figured out what *I* liked."

"Ah, yes, that'll do it. No judgement, I've done my fair share of idiotic decisions and that's without the excuse of being fourteen and stupid."

"Still trying to determine how I want to be stupid in university," she says with a half-chuckle.