aterat | Don’t change that channel!

Entry tags:

Don’t change that channel!

Who; Mono and anyone
What; Practicing his powers
Where; Around the city
When; Mid-March
Warnings; None to start, I think! I will update if something comes up.
Note; If you would like something specific or have an idea, you are welcome to talk to me about it. I am also open to writing personalized starters or doing other stuff, just drop me a line over on the plotting post or send me a message on discord @ WhimsicalSpook#8219

Mono was just finishing his last delivery for the day, the bag slung over his shoulder now empty, and he had plenty of time to spare. Time the boy had taken to making sure he had before the sun went down to spend practicing with his abilities. Mono still wasn’t fond of them for obvious reasons, but he was serious about learning to control it better. Especially to avoid hurting those around him, or letting it get out of control like it had before. The signal that he always gave off was clearly around to stay, stronger than before he went back…

But the rest of it was getting easier, thanks to help from Illyana, giving him advice and ideas to try out. More experience never hurt, though, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t forget things in between meetings with her. So after work on days when he didn’t meet up with someone else were reserved for this. He would find his way to a quiet back-alley where no one would be disturbed by his messing about with stuff, and would get to work.

Practicing the whole… portals through televisions was obviously still not happening, and Mono had been staying away from the mirrors that almost acted similarly (because his reflection in those was scary)… But everything else that was on the table. At least on smaller, careful scales.

‘Skipping’ as he called it, was easiest. His form blurring and stuttering as he walked and went from one end of the alley to suddenly a few feet further with an unnatural glitching quality, like a tape that wasn’t quite playing right. The boy would go back and forth like that a few times, until he felt a little more confident with it, before moving on.

‘Tuning’ was… A little more difficult. He could remember how big and powerful he’d felt after… The Man in the Hat was defeated, the way buildings had creaked and stood taller around him as he gathered his energy to make a final skip to the tower. He wasn’t sure if he could do that, reverse the wear on a worn, crooked building as he was now. Mono was pretty sure he’d only been that strong because of what happened and how close he’d been to the tower. How desperate he’d been to save his friend.

Though… The opposite of ‘fixing buildings’ had nearly happened when he returned to Aterat, he supposed.

Still, he hadn’t managed anything quite to that scale since his return, and he suspected it was from being in the Tower for so long. Now that he was cut off, it wasn’t quite so strong. So he focused on stacks of run down, soggy crates. Trying to make the leaning tower of boxes go back to standing tall. Though, that day, the bottom crate had kind of collapsed instead under the strain. Cracking and splintering, sending the rest of the stack tumbling. “Aw… Nuts!” A window rattled just slightly in its frame as the natural signal he generated fluctuated in his frustration. Then he sighed, and it settled.

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In their last conversation Illyana had offered to make Mono a charm and she never forgot offers made. She'd finished with the little charm after a few failed attempts that weren't exactly what she wanted. Perfection might not be something one can always achieve but she was determined to make this as good as she possibly could. In her time in this place she'd become attached to several people, but perhaps none quite as much as Mono. There were certain things about him and his situation that mirrored her own. There was always something about children that tugged at her heartstrings. Something she couldn't just ignore.

Besides, the idea of making something that could potentially help him to stay safe made her feel oddly...nice. Strange.

When she teleported to where she thought he was she found herself oddly proud of what he seemed to be doing. She watched for a short time, keeping herself up on a perched on a window ledge as seemed to hone in on some soggy crates. Then all of the sudden they splintered and cracked and the frame of the window shook. In an instance she lost her balance and then Illyana came tumbling down. She fell to the ground with a very undignified plop and then folded her arms over her chest in a childish gesture.

"Double nuts."

Mono hadn’t realized for once that he had an audience, though he would feel rather proud of himself if he realized that Illyana was proud of him for what he was doing. He was sure his progress was thanks to her help, after all. She was really good at giving him the encouragement and ideas on how to proceed, and she understood certain… Aspects of his life that other people didn’t quite get, which meant she was pretty good at talking him through his own uncertainties involving himself and his abilities when he really needed it.

But because he hadn’t spotted her watching from above, he was more than a little surprised when his teacher and friend dropped out of the sky and onto the cobblestones below with a rather impressive thud. Usually, when she appeared, it was out of one of her portal things! “Illyana!” He started, mouth agape, both with some concern and surprise. “How’d you fall? Did your portal drop you from the sky or something?” Could that happen? Accidental portal mishaps where they opened up where you didn’t want them to? That could happen with TVs sometimes, he guessed.

Glancing at the pile of crates behind her, the kid felt a little embarrassed that she had appeared right in the midst of a mishap with his own powers.

"You know, funny story, when I was first learning things like that would happen all the time. Not just dropping me out of the sky either. Sometimes objects. Limbo wasn't an ideal place to learn mutant powers." It messed with the nature of reality too much, particularly for someone whose powers could cross time and large distances. That wasn't a fact she'd admit to anyone else but him. She liked maintaining an image of being impressive too much to admit she started out with a lot of failures with her portals. That wasn't even touching how many failures she had with magic. That was a story all on it's own.

With Mono though she liked admitting things like that. It made her feel like maybe he'd feel better about himself to know others failed too. Or they made mistakes and they just got back up and kept trying until they understood.

"I was watching on the window," she stood up and brushed herself off ever so slightly. "Probably should have just said hi." Like a normal person. But when had she ever been a normal person? "It's nice to see you practicing though."

“Wow, really?” Mono looked honestly kind of surprised to hear that it was possible for her. Yes, it made sense that she must have had to learn how to do what she did at some point to get as talented as she was… But it was also hard to imagine her dropping out of the sky or random objects accidentally! It was… Kind of relatable and made him feel just a smidgen better about his seemingly slow progress. “Did you ever get hurt? That seems kinda dangerous. I fell out of some really high up TVS before. That was never fun.”

So the story had its intended effect, really, even as it made him curious too.

“Oh! Yeah, you shoulda, so I could say hi back.” He responded with a little glance up, spotting the ledge she had probably been sitting on. He kind of wondered if his little mishap had been the reason she fell in the first place. Oops. “I like to try to practice after work every day before I gotta go home. I’m getting better at some stuff!” Though as he glanced at the damaged crates, he added an honest: “Kinda...”

Sometimes it occured to her that she could probably tell the boy anything and just get away with it. It was only a brief thought here and there (she wasn't a complete monster!) but it did occur to her every now and then. Really it was probably lucky that Illyana didn't have that huge of an ego. At least not with him. Okay, maybe she did have a tiny ego every now and then with everyone. She rolled her shoulders in a half shrug. "Really, really." She confirmed it with another nod for emphasis. "Oh yeah, I got hurt tons. I once I accidentally teleported a bunch of cars into Limbo. That was a mess." Some of them also almost fell on her. It'd been kind of a mess. "And I messed up spells a ton. I wasn't really great with white magic when I was younger." Might've been the chunks of her soul that were missing that helped with that, but who was counting?

"Fair point. Then we both could have said hi." Somehow, through the grace of eldritch beings in Limbo, she was able to keep a straight face with that statement. "You're too responsible for someone your age." Even most of the other mutants she knew around he rage weren't even half as responsible as he was. It as honestly both impressive and worrisome. "Kinda huh? You break things a lot with the practice?"

“A bunch of cars!” He never really saw one moving before, but he knew they were really big hunks of metal with wheels. “That must’ve really hurt, then. I crashed a train car once, and it wasn’t fun.” He shook his head a little, refocusing on the whole point of the conversation as she continued to tell him about the other things she hadn’t been good at when she started. “But you got better the more you practiced?” Which he hoped, it meant he just needed to practicing with his stuff!

The comment, however, gets an innocent tilt of his head. “I am? I didn’t know that, but I also don’t know how normal kids are supposed to be about some stuff.” He watched them sometimes around the city, but it was often a mystery. A lot of them seem like they wouldn’t last for long in his world, but it’s better to not say that… They get scared then. Which was fair! Though a small afterthought struck, his face scrunching a bit as he tried to sort through his own memories. “I also kinda don’t know how old I really am, been kinda stuck doing the same stuff over and ending up in the tower.” He wasn’t even sure when his birthday was, he’d heard other people talk about birthdays here and they sounded like something people kept track of normally. Regardless, there was a point the boy was trying to get to in his confusing little circle of thoughts. “So maybe I’m really as responsible as someone my age is?”

Her question gets a smaaaaall shrug. “Kinda sorta… yeah? I think if I did it right I could make stuff less broken and crooked, ‘cause I remember doing something kinda like that once… But mostly stuff gets all bendy and broken instead. I used to break TVs a lot too, so I’m really good at breaking stuff without meaning to.” It was a small point of fear, which was why he wanted to control his powers better and not break stuff. Otherwise, he was afraid people might decide they don’t want him around if he continued to break stuff all the time, and sometimes it was harder to not use your powers once you knew you had them.

"It hurt in a few ways." Her pride may have been slightly injured. "An entire train car? How'd you manage that?" She gave a sharp nod to his question. "Of course I did. Had to get the title Sorceress Supreme somehow. Hard work pays off." Hard work and spite. But she managed to not add the spite part. Better for him to not end up thinking you had to be bitter to get better at anything.

"Kid like. Irresponsible. Sneaking off to the mall without telling their parents without realizing they might get tracked down by mutant hunting robots. Or playing in the street without thinking about the cars coming down it." That last one was probably more accurate for what a kid really was supposed to be like. "But maybe there's some world where you match how responsible a kid should be." Like his world. There he was probably just as responsible as he needed to be to survive. Kind of like how she'd been when she'd been in Limbo. No kid should have to adjust like that, but no difference really came from lamenting on that.

She tilts her head to look in the direction of the end result of his practice. If it'd been anyone else but Mono she'd have said somethin sarcastic about how she could see he was good at breaking things. It was him though so she kept that to herself. "Mutants are pretty good at that too. Breaking things I mean. When we first learn how to use our powers it's..." she waved a hand and then moved two fingers in a walking motion only to flop her hand over as if they'd fallen over. "kind of like walking. We stumble a lot." She paused, considering how much she wanted to tell him, and then eventually decided on quite a bit. "My friend Dani couldn't control her powers at all when she first got them. Her entire community was terrified of her and she eventually had to leave. She bounced around a few places, losing control and causing a mess. It's not unusual for things like that to happen." So he shouldn't feel too bad or weird. Easier said than done. "Heck, my brother still occasionally loses his temper and accidentally breaks a table. Or something bigger if he's that angry."

“Like more than one kinda injury?” Pride hadn’t entered the kid’s mind, so he was imagining more than a few injuries considering it involved multiple cars. Though her question gets a little shrug, “I was being chased by um… the bigger me, I guess? I pulled that funny stick thing that disconnected the car from the rest of the train that was at the top of the hill and so it kinda just started rolling on its own really fast.” Gravity did most of the work after that, and since he didn’t have a way to put on breaks, it was a rather spectacular crash at the bottom.

Illyana’s decision was a smart one. The boy had ended up very bitter and spiteful at some point when he’d been left in the tower. That had a way of festering and warping a person, and well… That’s how you got the Man in the Hat terrifying and in charge. Instead, Mono was able to focus on the good point. “So I just gotta keep at it, and maybe I can get really good at this stuff too.” He nodded with a hopeful, tilted smile.

The boy listened to her description of how kids are supposed to be. It didn’t make a lot of sense, especially the part about mutant hunting robots (that sounded kind of terrible), so he shook his head a bit. “I really am bad at being a normal kid, I guess.” At least based on that and what he’d seen of a lot of kids in general. But at her idea, he nodded. “I think that kinda makes the most sense, at least for my world.” He agreed, before letting her get a look at the results of his practice, which was a fairly sizable mess of broken crates and stuff.

It kind of… helped to hear that Illyana and the other mutant people had similar experiences with their powers. It makes him feel like this part of the process might be normal, and maybe he wasn’t bad just for being unable to control them properly yet. He just needed to practice and learn like she and her friends did in order to get better at things. Though at the mention of her brother, he nodded with a certain understanding. Not because he knew what her brother’s ability was so much as… “Yeah, stuff breaks really easy if I get angry or frustrated with this stuff.”

"It was embarrassing. Even if nobody was really around." Of course he had to ask. She sighed. "Smart move. You think fast." Faster than a lot of people a lot older than he was. It was actually pretty impressive how clever he was and how quick on his feet he seemed to be. She gave a nod back to him. "Exactly. Powers are just like any skill. You have to practice to get good at it. But with enough practice, you get there.

"There's nothing wrong with being bad at being a kid." She tried to give him something of an encouraging smile, it was a bit lopsided but it was an attempt. The best attempt she really had. She shrugged. ""Messes like that can be cleaned up pretty easy. Better to practice and destroy boxes than buildings people live in. Or people. If Piotr was here I think he'd be able to help you more. And be more encouraging."

“Oh!” The boy thought he understood what she meant, then. He almost wishes he hadn’t asked, considering it was also probably embarrassing to admit it when you didn’t have to. “I kinda get that. It’s why I don’t like to practice where people can see me. That and I don’t wanna disturb people or scare them when I break stuff by accident.” So alleyways seemed like a good place to go. No one ever bothered with junk in alleyways, because it was just that. Junk. “I guess I gotta keep practicing then. ‘Cause I’m still breaking stuff most’ve the time.” He didn’t voice it, but it was a little disappointing. He thought that this might be easier to get better at where he had time to focus without anything dangerous trying to chase him and stuff.

The attempted smile, and encouragement, does help though. Even if the smile was a little lopsided, he was still pretty awkward at times. Smiling was weird, but a good weird, right? “Thanks, Illyana. I guess I’m just me, even if it’s weird or bad compared to normal kids?” And maybe it was good that one kid in the group was bad at being a kid. Even if he didn’t know all the normal kid stuff, they could teach him some of it… And if something not normal happened, then he’d at least know what to do to help them to show them out to be safe… maybe? At least, that seemed sensible to him.

The boy blinked with some obvious confusion. “I’d like to meet your brother. He sounds pretty neat… But you know, I think you’re pretty good at encouraging, too? At least I feel kinda encouraged already since you got here.”

"Both good things to think about. We had a whole two schools to do that in when I went back home. Places far away from others so that they wouldn't get too upset when we broke something or messed up. Now we have an entire island." But that wasn't going too great from what she'd been seeing. They'd called it Utopia but it was anything but a utopia. "You'll get there. And even after you get there you'll probably still break things now and then. It's just the way it is when you have powers." She actually couldn't think of a single mutant that didn't lose their temper now and then and accidentally break something with their abilities.

"Normal is highly overrated anyway." That was an honest statement with a much more honest smile. "All my best friends are weird but that's just them. We were also all pretty bad at being kids. We were handling things most adults would never have to when we should have been worrying about exams and homework and school dances." There was some drama when it came to relationships but never really the kind you thought about when it came to high school or middle school and the school dances there.

"I'd like you to meet him too. Or just to see him again." Truth be told she missed him a lot here. "Really?" she shifted a bit awkwardly then smiled. "Thank you."

“Yeah? A whole school? There was a school where I’m from, but it kinda wasn’t a good school like that.” The teacher there was scary, and so were the fake kids that made up the student population, honestly. “That sounds really helpful, though. Not having to worry about being around people who might get upset if you break stuff. It’s hard finding spots that might not bug people sometimes.” Plus… It might be kinda nice to be around more people who were also trying to learn and kind of understood, right? He offered one of his little tilted smiles at the encouragement. “Yeah, I’m just gonna keep trying. I’d rather learn to not break stuff at all, though… Unless I needed to, I guess.” Like if someone was stuck or in trouble and the only way to help was to break something, maybe… But Mono wanted to get as good as he could with his abilities, he didn’t want to turn out the way he did in his world… And he didn’t want to upset the adults he actually liked and trusted in this world. The idea that they all might not like him anymore was a silly worry, but a worry nonetheless.

Mono hummed a little, sitting on the edge of one of the crates he had been practicing with, one of the unbroken ones. “Usually people use the word weird because it’s not normal or good, though, right?” Words were kind of strange too though, he realized some words ended up meaning different things than you thought because of people and other places. The list of things normal kids should worry about gets a little scrunch of his nose. “I heard of those things since I got here, mostly.” The school and its porcelain bullies were probably a bad example of what a school was. He bet they didn’t even do homework, not properly, anyway. “Adults always seem really surprised by that stuff too if they find out what you had to do, don’t they? Feels strange, even if I know it’s just ‘cause to them it doesn’t seem normal or okay.” But it wasn’t like Mono could change that, and they couldn’t either. So while their upset had been explained, it was really hard to know what to do with their reactions.

“Maybe we can someday, since people are suddenly here all the time?” So it seemed like it was at least a possibility! Just a random one, and it seemed like there was no knowing if someone you knew was going to appear or not. “Really really!” He confirmed, nodding vigorously. Which was a pretty good indication that the boy was being honest. It was very firm and animated, considering he usually was pretty subdued. Then again, maybe it was just because of how comfortable he felt with Illyana. “You’re good at saying stuff that makes sense and makes me feel better about trying.”

"Yup. A whole school. The big one was called Xavier's. Tommy knows about it too." Mono worked for Tommy so she figured it was fair to throw that out there. Everyone knew about Xavier's, even if they hadn't exactly gone there themselves. "We had the Danger Room to train in." Almost said like someone would just know what a Danger Room was. Most people just shouldn't know what it was, especially kids. Honestly, it probably shouldn't even exist for kids. But it was pretty great for training.

"It worked out well, especially for people with powers like Sam and Roberto. More destructive things." At least they had a nice place for people like that though. "Maybe we should look into creating some sort of space here. Wouldn't be as fancy as the danger room but it might give an opportunity for a more consistent space." All it would need to be was big enough to handle it and far enough out of the way to not be bothered. "I'm impressed you're going to keep trying even if you mess up sometimes. Some people give up immediately when they fail." She knew plenty of mutant kids that that just got angry they didn't get it completely at first and flipped out.

"Not all the time. Some people love being weird. They think it's unique." Which she definitely leaned more on the side of believing herself. Some people might see it as a bad thing, but plenty of people wouldn't. "Oh yeah. You know what they really hated the most though? They hated being beaten by us. You'd be surprised how many of our arch enemies were adults that were furious to be shown up by a group of kids." Adults wanted kids to be kids, to do the normal kid things, and when that expectation wasn't met they tended to react badly. Not just that, but they also seemed to take being beaten by kids real bad. "Just goes to show there's something to those Scooby Doo episodes." Those meddling kids!

"Maybe, but it's been a long time now." And she'd pretty much given up hope that she'd get to see him here. "Thank you for saying all that though." She did at least believe he was being honest and that he definitely thought that. Which was...nice, but strange.

Mono knew a little about Tommy’s background. He’d seen one of his memories too when the crystal rains happened. Which, probably, was why Tommy was one of the other people he felt particularly comfortable around with this stuff. That just made more sense to the boy now, as he tilted his head curiously. “So you both when to the school together?” He swung his legs back and forth a bit while he tried to figure out what a danger room was based on the name alone. Obviously the having the word ‘Danger’ in the title lead one to believe it was a dangerous room. He’s been in dangerous rooms, though, and having a room dedicated to it in a school seemed silly… So he supposed it was another one of those words that wasn’t meant to be taken just at that. Like maybe it was a dangerous room because you could do dangerous stuff in it. Which seemed to be the case as she continued. “So you could practice and not worry about breaking stuff or making people mad about it ‘cause that’s what the room was for… That’d be really cool. I don’t wanna upset people with this stuff.”

So a room dedicated to practicing his powers, even though they could be a bit dangerous at times, like when things broke? That would be a pretty big help. It would also keep Mono out of random alleyways, which one could argue was probably good for the kid… He nudged a board with one foot that was hanging lower off the edge at her compliment. “If I don’t practice, then I dunno what’ll happen. Seems kinda bad to just give up. I like it here and I like the people here… I don’t wanna see stuff end up like before.” Not being trapped in a tower for an unknown amount of time probably helped avoid that to begin with, really, that wasn’t good for the mind… But who knew if people would stick him somewhere if he did cause trouble, or if they decided like Six did that he shouldn’t be around. So learning seemed better for everyone, even if it was hard.

“So… Being weird doesn’t really have to be bad. It can mean more than that.” He frowned a little, clearly trying to wrap his head around that. He decided he liked that, though. If it wasn’t bad to be weird… Maybe it would be okay…? Or even good? “Adults are really confusing.” He finally admitted when she explained about adults being mad about being beaten. He was pretty sure the ones he’d gotten away from, as inhuman as they had been, were also pretty mad that they hadn’t got him. The ones that weren’t dead now, anyway. He paused, though, blinking. “Except you, you’re not confusing.” Illyana was older than him… so that made her an adult… but not a bad adult…? If that made sense? The boy wasn’t sure if it did, but he didn’t find her confusing most of the time.

The boy seemed satisfied with that, she seemed to believe him and that was what was important! “You’re welcome!” He chirped back, looking quite pleased with himself for it and that she seemed… Happy, even if was weird?

"Nah, Tommy never joined us. For a lot of reasons. He had his own crew. I think they called themselves Junior Avengers." Young Avengers, close enough though! Truthfully, she got why Tommy would never want to join them there. She also got why not many mutants would have wanted him to at the time. The entire mess with his mom made things strained between mutants and her. He might've even been better off not at the school. It got destroyed or attacked almost every other month. Not exactly the safest place for students to exist. "Yup, that was the general idea. That and prepare us for war." She said that with a shrug and a light enough looking expression that you could almost wonder if she was joking or being serious. "It used a lot of AI tech that we couldn't use here but there used to be more basic ones." Maybe something like that could be possible here.

"That's the best kind of attitude someone could have." She glanced over at him with a proud look o her face and smiled. He could probably teach a lot of adults a lesson or two. "Wise beyond your years." She added on with a little chuckle. "Yup. Being weird can be a great thing. Some people really embrace it because it makes them unique." She laughed outright at that and just nodded. "Boy are they ever. I still don't get them and I'm kind of an adult." Time was weird in Limbo but she mostly was. "Glad to count among the less confusing ones."

“Ohhh… I guess that makes sense.” He would have to ask Tommy about it sometime, maybe. The boy was always rather curious about the world they came from for a variety of reasons. Mono tilted his head slightly, trying to decide if what Illyana was saying was serious or a joke… Really, with what he knew about the world and other worlds… Even his own? It was hard to say if it was a joke or not, so the boy would be left puzzling over that… But some worlds clearly sucked if you were a kid. Though he still had to admit, the danger room sounded useful. “That sounds really neat, except for the war thing. A place where you don’t gotta worry while you practice would really help!” Instead of hiding out in back alleyways where he hoped he wouldn’t be bothering or affecting anyone’s day.

There was honestly something about being told he had the best attitude about this kind of thing that made him feel a little more confident in continuing to try. If someone told him otherwise or that it was a waste, well… Then he’d feel kind of silly for trying so hard. But if someone as smart as Illyana was saying that? Then it had to be true! One of his clumsy little half grins crossed his face at the idea of being wise. “Like an owl! Or at least I heard people say owls are wise.” He doesn’t know if that’s true, but it was something he’d heard other kids say before… And they did have very serious expressions, so they might be wise. He still wasn’t sure if his kind of weird was good… But the boy was probably going to take some time to think about that, or at least he wouldn’t be forgetting or dismissing the idea any time soon. Being weird had been something of a concern to him for a while now. That aside, it was almost strange to think that an adult didn’t even get other adults. “So am I. It’s nice to have adults who are less confusing to talk to sometimes. Makes stuff make more sense.” He added with a sage little nod.

"You could always ask him about it. He'd probably be fine with telling you about his childhood. It shares the common theme of mutants having shit lives." Maybe she shouldn't use the word shit around him but he was already more adult than most adults so it seemed silly to censor herself too much with things like that. "It was pretty nice. Definitely made our lives a bit easier here and there. We all needed practice with what we could do. Some more than others." Some had more destructive powers after all.

"Exactly! Like an owl! A wise Owl. Kinda weird how they've almost always been symbols of that actually." Almost made her wonder where that came from. Owls didn't seem particularly wise to her, just maybe slightly more than the average bird. Yet the association went back as far as gods of ancient Greece. Had to have come from somewhere. Illyana happened to think all weird was better than no weird. Normal people were boring and they also didn't unusually understand things. Which made things difficult and also more frustrating than she wanted to admit. Her own people sometimes didn't understand her and the things she'd gone through. Normal people didn't stand a chance at all.

"If it helps, as you get older adults get slightly less confusing." Only slightly.

“Yeah, I know some stuff… I saw a memory of his when the crystal rain happened.” And it was pretty obvious between Tommy’s memory and Illyana’s that they both hadn’t had a very nice childhood either… Probably why he gravitated towards both of them as much as he did. “I’ll ask him more sometime, maybe.” If it seemed like a good time, the boy thought might be something that wasn’t a subject people liked talking about.

Instead, the boy decided to focus on the idea of a place to practice. “I bet it would be pretty neat if there were something like that here. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about finding places that won’t bug people.” And accidentally failing, as was the case at least once this month, unfortunately. Mono would certainly not complain about maybe finding one place to practice instead of having to keep finding new places. “I didn’t know they always had been, but I guess that makes sense if even I heard it.” Since his education was mostly from learning at random from other people, rather than a proper formal education like most kids. “I bet it’s the eyes. They always have really alert and serious eyes.”

Mono’s face scrunched a bit at the idea that they would get slightly less confusing. “I guess it kinda helps, like getting older just means what adults do make more sense ‘cause you are one?”

"Glad we haven't gotten anymore of that kind of thing lately." Her time here had certainly made Illyana a bit more open about herself, but she still was far from being an open book. Sometimes she almost felt like her time here had made it harder to open up about some of the darker things she'd done. Things happened here now and then but they were never too horrible for too long. It was peaceful, painfully normal sometimes, and not the kind of place you admit to some of the things she'd done. She'd told the big ones and some of them had gotten shared in crystal rain. But there were still skeletons in her closet and sometimes she wondered what thing from her past might tip the scales of people's opinion of her.

Needless to say she was happy to focus on a practice place as well. "We can see about making one. Maybe I could summon something." It was a thought. Or at the very least maybe she could get some help and come up with a few spells to put around a building to make it more fortified and contained. Circles weren't too hard after all. A bigger one might be, but in theory is should be possible. Illyana nodded. "That's a good observation about the eyes. It does make them look like they know something. Or everything." Sometimes it was a bit creepy. Just a bit though.

"I guess. Or maybe it's just you can ignore the confusing parts easier when you're an adult too." Which, now that she thought about it, implied they weren't actually less confusing just that learned to ignore them better. Huh. That was probably actually more accurate.

“Me too, I kinda hated it. It seemed unfair to people to have stuff shared without being able to choose or not. And… It’s weird having to explain stuff about your world that people might not like, right?” He was pretty sure Illyana and Tommy both wouldn’t have wanted to have to explain stuff about their lives to people, even him! He didn’t like it either… On the one hand, maybe it would help if people understood what his world was like, on the other hand? Having to explain all that seemed like a really big bother, especially if it was upsetting to see. Even for him to learn about their childhoods gave him a conflicted feeling between it helping to know he wasn’t the only kid who’s childhood wasn’t what most adults expected and anger that they had been through such bad stuff too.

Mono’s expression was something a little hopeful at the idea. A whole room where he didn’t have to worry about getting in people’s way or breaking the wrong things. “Okay! I dunno what you would need to do something like that, aside from a room… But I can help test it when you do!” Which in turn helped him, so it was a win/win situation. Maybe more people would like a place like that too! “What do you mean, like summon a place or something to help make a room like that?” He’s not sure how summoning works, but it sounded like Illyana had an idea at least.

Ignoring the confusing parts more easily… The boy’s expression looked a little confused at first, but he guessed that kind of made more sense then adults suddenly making more sense. “I guess if you’re around confusing people long enough that you would get used to it… So the longer I’m here and growing up maybe the less confused I’ll be ‘cause I’ll just be used to it.” He finally decided, and kind of hoped that would be the case. “So if I’m here till I’m an adult maybe I’ll stop being confused as much!” Then again, that was a really weird thing to think about.

"Unfair is one way to put it," she said with a hint of a smile. It was a very childlike way to put it, but she wasn't going to say that. Mostly because she agreed, it wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair, but that didn't make the unfair things any more fair. "Definitely weird. I mostly just disliked having to explain my past. There's a lot there people won't like." People probably wanted to understand. Illyana knew that people said things like that a lot, that they want to understand where people came from and how they got to be the way they were. That didn't make it easier though. Nor did it make the fears that it might cause them to see her differently go away.

"You'll be my official tester when I figure it out then." She gave him a grin and then waved a hand, conjuring up a tiny button that had the words 'official tester' written on it in big bold colorful letters. "Here, you can even have this button of authority of the position." She nodded her head. "Yeah, something like that. Or just a protection spell for a building already here." There seemed like there might be a lot of options to make it work.

"That's a positive way to look at it," and she tried very hard to hide the fact that she was laughing. It was pretty unsuccessful though. How could she not laugh at it though? All things considered it was a pretty accurate statement and yet it was somehow hilarious at the same time. "Maybe if you're here that long you'll end up understanding everything better than I do." It was strange to think about someone staying here that long, but also strange to think about him as an adult. She wondered what he might be like as one...

“Exactly, people don’t always like the stuff that happens in your past… But it’s not like you can do anything about that, so it just makes them upset and harder to explain!” He agreed on that subject quite a bit. Even if other people wanted to know and understand… If they didn’t like it, that made things feel awkward and weird. Like you had to make it better somehow, he thinks… But you couldn’t because it was in the past and it was already done.

A small ‘wow’ escaped at the very official button that made his being the tester seem all the more official. “That’s kinda neat, thanks Illyana. I promise I’ll do a good job of testing when you got it all ready!” He added with a tiny, clumsy grin. The boy would absolutely take this job seriously, and he was excited at the idea of having somewhere special to practice his abilities… Who knew how many people might need it in the future, too? Maybe there would be more people like him that needed a safe place to try to learn to do stuff better.

Mono isn’t sure about understanding adults better than Illyana, though perhaps that was just because he thought she was one of the smarter people around here… “Maybe, but I dunno. I think if they still confuse you sometimes, then they’ll probably still confuse me a little.” And it was, as she herself was thinking, weird to think about actually growing up and being an adult here in the first place. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen himself as an adult, after all, and that version of himself was pretty scary… He really didn’t want to be that version of himself here, so hopefully… Hopefully all this would work out differently than in his world.

"The problem is people don't care enough to listen." Instead they just got upset and rushed to conclusions. All because they were upset. What she thought about saying was that ultimately people were selfish and didn't want to know about the pain of others or their experiences. They only cared about how it effected them. But that was certainly a darker turn to the subject than she wanted to take. It was also something she knew was colored by her own past. When people had become furious with her and refused to listen to what she wanted. Fear and hate always won out over listening.

She flashed him a quick smile. "I know you will. I bet we'll have some fun too." Training could be fun sometimes. With the right people that is and Mono was certainly the right people. At the very least she didn't think they wouldn't have fun. Even just thinking about it brought back some somewhat pleasant memories of a good time here and there with her own friends while training. Bittersweet memories as always.

"Maybe people just confuse people," she shrugged.

Mono frowned slightly at that. “Seems kinda dumb, really. If they see things and they ask about stuff, they should care, shouldn’t they?” It explained some of it, but just made him a little more confused. At least concerning things like memory shares and having to talk about your past… It all looped back to the fact that adults, and other people in general in worlds that were far different from his own, were confusing.

“You think so? Even though it’s practicing something serious, it could be fun?” That was… an interesting way to think about it. Mono had never really thought about how his abilities might be practiced for fun. Frankly, the boy only understood things that were fun from random scattered interactions with the few people who showed him what they found fun or how to do something that was supposed to be fun.

“I think that kinda sounds right… At least thinking about the people I know.” He finally agreed. That much seemed like the honest truth, regardless of how old he was or would get. People were confusing and that was that.

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