Guidance Counselor's Office, Wednesday

[solarhippie]

This week, there were no major technical difficulties happening in the guidance counselor's office, and for that, Karolina was thankful.

There were, a however, a lot of apples on her desk. Like a lot. A lot a lot. It was kind of a pyramid of apples, right on her desk, and she was worried about whether touching it would lead to all the apples rolling off onto the floor and into different directions.

"And these aren't even in season," she said incredulously, to no one in particular. As if that was a thing that had ever swayed Fandom before.

[ooc: Open office!]

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[solarhippie]

For a split second, Karolina almost suggested bowling.

Then, immediately after, she realized that that was probably one of the worst possible ideas, after the skill both of them had just now demonstrated at handling way smaller round objects.

"Uh, drinks is fine," she decided, nodding. "I don't do that a lot, so I think that balances it out." Because for all of her visible hipster hippieness, she was stll kind of a stay-at-home nerd at heart. "Also no, noo, the apples aren't my doing. I mean, I have powers, but nothing to do with apples."

[notallbluemonks]

"I was kind of joking about the powers . . . you're serious about that?" It was hard to tell whether Beau looked more surprised or impressed, but it was definitely both in some proportion, with a touch of doubt mixed in. "Like magic, or something totally different?"

Bowling could quite possibly end up terribly.

[solarhippie]

Karolina shrugged. "Well, like I mentioned before, I'm not human." A beat. "Except socially and culturally, but, anyway."

She'd thought about that kind of thing a lot during her studies, okay. What it meant that she'd spent so long living as a regular Earth-born human before the truth had come out.

"I, uh, I can manipulate energy into shields and beams. And I can fly. But, no apples. Or any other kind of manifesting things from thin air, either." Her head tilted a little, thoughtful. "So I probably wouldn't call it magic."

[notallbluemonks]

Beau’s eyebrows had started twitching upwards slightly at the energy shields, and by the time Karolina mentioned the flying she was sporting a wide-eyed expression somewhere between impressed and awed.

“You can fly? That’s hot,” she said, so quickly it was clearly reflex. “Usually in my world when people can do that kind of thing it usually is because of magic. Unless it’s a racial thing — uh, that doesn’t always mean the same thing it does here, but as far as I know I’ve only heard of these bird-people who can. I still forget that this world is mostly just used to all humans all the time, you know? Like, outside of here, I mean. And see, now I kinda want to watch you fly sometime, but did you not know for a while? That you weren’t actually human?”

[solarhippie]

"Uh, yeah," Karolina replied, looking off to the side, briefly, as she carded a hand back through her hair. "That actually kinda went with the whole evil parents thing? I was raised on the other side of this country and it wasn't until I was sixteen that the whole... parent thing happened, and I found out that they were aliens and so was I."

She made a face, the way you sometimes did when something sucked but on the other hand, what could you do?

"It was a lot."

[notallbluemonks]

Beau frowned slightly, blinking for a second as she tried to figure out how to respond to that exactly without sounding like a complete asshole.

“Yeah, that’s, uh. I kind of don’t even have a frame of reference to figure out how you’d process all that,” she admitted. Finding out about some of the shady crap her father had gotten up to hadn’t exactly been fun either, but that wasn’t even on the same level. “I mean, wow.”

She rubbed a hand over the back of her head and asked, in a slightly raspier voice than usual, “How did you even handle all of that?”

And not come out of it all angry and bitter, was what she meant, but that part could remain unsaid for now.

[solarhippie]

Karolina shrugged with a wry little smile. "Good friends and mandatory therapy? she suggested. "Maybe a little heroing?"

She was wlling to be open about these things, but not so much so as to go into the whole messy self-loathing issue she'd had for a couple of years, there.

[notallbluemonks]

"That's fair," Beau said with a tiny but genuine smile of her own.

It was probably best not to go there; she had her own fun self-loathing issues to contend with, after all, and some things were a little uncomfortably close to home.

"I mean, looks like you made it work pretty well for you. And now you're paying it forward here? That's . . . kind of amazing."

[solarhippie]

Karolina's smile remained lopsided and wry, but for a slightly different reason. "Well, if any kids ever actually came here," she said with a little raise of her eyebrows, and then a shake of her head. "It's hard to get people to admit they need anyone to talk to, sometimes, on this island. Everyone's a hero."

She had been, anyway. Same with her friends.

[notallbluemonks]

"I wouldn't know what that's like," Beau said deadpan, as if she wouldn't insist she was fine while bleeding profusely. "But yeah, getting people to talk about their damage is -- I don't have the patience for it, l personally."

She grinned slowly. "So you're saying you would probably have been bored all day if I didn't come by?"

Not the point, Beau.

[solarhippie]

Not the point, but Karolina couldn't help snickering just a little anyway. "Yeah, I guess so," she said. "Would've been a long and lonely day."

She could joke! Sometimes!

[notallbluemonks]

"Good thing about the apples then, I guess," Beau decided. "It was going to be a pretty boring day for me too, otherwise."