Experimental Glowing (open)

[Exxie]

Jodie was tired of just being the human glow-worm. She wanted to learn some more of these powers. She didn't want to have them, but obviously she was stuck with them for now, even if she found out a way to rid herself of them later. And they might as well be of some use. She had figured the gym was as good a place as any to learn. Straightening her t-shirt, Jodie walked into the gym and immediately headed for the supply closet. Aha! There was what she was looking for. A radio that played CDs. CDs were something she had brought plenty of with her. CDs had been her solace whenever she thought of herself as a freak. This time, Jodie just knew she wanted to put on a Carrie Underwood song. If someone discovered this, she might end up being in trouble. But she didn't care. She wanted to learn more about her powers. She set it at the track Cupid's Got a Shotgun. This song had a good beat, and the lyrics made her feel good. They were funny too.



Putting it on play, she started to try to wake her powers. Then her mind wandered and she started singing along to the song. Her voice wasn't bad. In fact, even though she was self-conscious about it, it was actually pretty good. Jodie smiled and then she noticed the glow in her hands. Suddenly, it connected.

"I glow because of my emotions..." The statement trailed off as she stared amazed at it. Cool! She suddenly felt so happy. She knew what caused her powers to emerge! It made sense, but it made her so happy to know that it wasn't just random! Suddenly, she felt something shoot from her palm and then heard a clang. Looking up, she saw the gym light above her swaying. Whoa. That was wicked awesome.

"YEEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT!" Her smile turned into a wide grin. Maybe her powers weren't so lame after all. Then suddenly she heard a sound and looked around nervously. She didn't see anyone, but she knew from experience that didn't mean anything.

"Is anyone there?" The tone was cautious, yet friendly.

[Constance Bumble]

Wondering the halls of the large school, Constance had come to the very obvious conclusion that she was lost. She had absolutely no idea how on earth this had happened. The few houses she had lived in had had up to one hundred and fifty rooms, yet she still had no sense of direction whatsoever, she tended to stay in the east wings of her houses, it was the same wing where her maids slept and where the kitchen and library were. And it was away from her parents who always slept and worked in the west wing.

Constance dragged a suitcase along slowly, behind her, her two other bags on her shoulder. She wasn't at all sure what to make of this place. Her accent was completely different to many of the people around here, if she was honest with herself; she wasn't sure whether or not she'll fit in. Her pale green eyes flicked from one side of the hallway to the other, 'I'm bloody lost.' She told herself. 'Typical.'
As she passed one door, she picked up on muffled music and the very faint singing of a girl pouring out of it. She pushed the door open curiously, hoping, but doubting, that this was the room she was looking for. It wasn't. This wasn't an office at all, it was the Gymnasium.

Her eyes fixed on the female, her back was to her, so her only obvious trait was her long blonde hair, but she could see one of her hands from where she was standing, wait, her hand, it was... glowing? Constance's eye widened as she watched the girl, but before she could say anything, something shot out of the female's hand and hit the light above her. This wasn't that shocking to Constance, this was a school for the gifted, what did shock her was the shout that came after the glowing, she jumped out of her skin, pressing herself against the wall in shadow next to the door, accidentally knocking over her suitcase next to her, she tried to reach to catch it, but missed completely, the case hitting the floor, which made quite a loud 'thud!'.

Is anyone there?

The female's friendly voice made her jump, but she stepped forward silently, into the light, Constance gave a small smile, and lifted a hand, shaking it in a wave and nervous greeting. "Hello." She replied softly, having nothing else to say. She leant down to pull the suitcase back up to her side, and looked back to the female, with the same small smile and worried eyebrows.

[Exxie]

Jodie saw the girl step into the light and an eyebrow raised in curiosity. She smiled slightly, but she was also a little nervous. The other girl appeared to be a bit nervous too, but Jodie was nervous because she had been caught practicing her powers. Powers she hated. People tended to assume things when that happened. She still hated her powers. She was just trying to figure out what she could do with them was all. Jodie raised a hand with a small shy sort of smile. She walked over to the boombox and shut it off. Music was something she usually listened to by herself. Having someone else listen to it at the same time as her was more of a trust issue for her than letting them see her powers! She bit her lip, unsure of what to say. One quiet word came out.

"Hey." But then she was nervous, and more words came pouring out.

"I was practicing my powers because I figured if I had them, I might as well know how to use them and even though I hate them and they ruined my life they might have some other purpose that would be useful in my life other than glowing and lighting a pathway in the dark like a human lantern because I'm no green lantern. I'm no colour in particular. And I hit the light, so...I hope the janitor doesn't get angry at me for denting it because I have no money to pay for a fix-it." Oh gosh she was doing it again. Saying whatever came into her head.

"I really need to learn to shut up when I'm embarrassed." She smacked her forehead.

"Hey. I'm not sure if I should be doing this considering you just caught me singing to a song that according to school rules probably shouldn't have been going anyways, but I'm Jodie." She chuckled a bit at herself and smiled somewhat sheepishly.

[Constance Bumble]

Constance was still as she stood quietly, her eyes following the girl when she walked over to turn off the boombox. She began to tug nervously on the loose ends of her blue hair, the smile on her face looked very slightly forced. When the girl then began talking, it was obvious that she was nervous. Constance always did what the opposite of what this girl seemed to do when she was nervous and didn't talk much at all, too worried that she would say something to offend the other person in some way, she didn't like feeling as if she'd said something rude.

She listened very intently to what the female was saying, when she met new people it was a tendency of hers to drift out of the conversation quite quickly, without realising, but she acctually found that it was easy to listen to this girl, even though she was rambling slightly, what she was saying was interesting, she was talking about her powers, even mentioning how she didn't hated them, Constance could relate to that, her powers barely did anything and were useless to her.
The usual people she met were her parent's clients, who normally started talking to her about politics, or about how her parents were the best thing that had happened to them or their companies so far, causing her mind to tune out of the conversation completely, she tried not to, but when people are talking to her about things that don't interest her, like tourism or guinea pigs, her brain turned off.

As the girl in front of her continued to talk Constance's smile became a lot more genuine and she found herself suppressing a small chuckle. When the female she now knew as Jodie had finished talking and had introduced herself, Constance's smile began to grow wider, she'd only just arrived anyway and hadn't had any chance to read the schools rules yet, so she wouldn't have acctually known that Jodie wasn't really supposed to be in the gymnasium if she hadn't told her.
"I'm Constance." She replied softly, her right hand wrapped around the handle of her suitcase, pulling it close to her, and her left was still tugging gently on her loose hair nervously. "I think your powers are amazing." She told Jodie, her eyes moving up to the dented light above Jodie, then back down to her. "I could never do anything like that. The most exciting thing I've done in the past month is create a gentle breeze." Constance mentioned, "And I didn't even do that on purpose..." She bit down hard on her bottom lip, still feeling quite nervous.

[Exxie]

Jodie heard the girl introduce herself and compliment her on her powers and her eyebrows rose. She adjusted her blonde hair, throwing it over her shoulder a bit. It was a nervous habit of hers. She wasn't really used to human company as much yet, so knowing how to take a compliment wasn't something she was good at. She knew the formal stuff because her parents had drilled it into her, but the other stuff? Not so much. When Jodie saw Constance holding tightly to her suitcase and fooling with her hair, she felt a wave of sympathy. Then she heard the statement of not making a breeze on purpose and Jodie couldn't help it. A fairly large laugh burst from her.

"Sorry. It's just...I don't use my powers on purpose either. I just glow when I'm happy, and I just realized that. And I dented the lamp completely by accident. I didn't even know I could do that. Mostly I'm just an oversized flashlight right now." She smiled, feeling a little less nervous after seeing she wasn't the only one.

"You can relax. I'm only a prankster to people I don't like. Now you, I can see we could be friends. Provided you don't mind ignoring my slight delinquencies. Call it a leftover from my exciting, yet drab childhood." She would have thought the two words contradicted each other, but not in her situation. There had been a lot of exciting stuff in her childhood, but sitting in her room had been a bit drab. And that had been most of the time. Even the exciting stuff got old after a while.

[Constance Bumble]

Constance jumped very gently as Jodie burst out laughing, for some reason she was very jumpy today, she blamed it on the nerves of starting a new school. Jodie didn't use her powers on purpose? Constance somehow found this very reassuring, making her thankful that there was someone around here who didn't know everything about her powers, just like her. From the way Jodie spoke about her abilities, Constance could pretty much guess along the lines of they were, light manipulation of some kind, she found that to be more useful than any powers she'd ever heard of. This fascinated her, the only people she'd actually ever met who had powers were family members, and they could only control the four elements. Light manipulation was unique, there was at least two other people in her extended family who could manipulate air,and they could fly with it, she highly doubted she would ever get to that stage of ability.

Constance smiled lightly again, as Jodie smiled. She felt a lot more comfortable talking to Jodie now that she could tell how friendly she was, her hand dropped from her hair, not feeling as nervous, though her fingers still twiddled with the end of her faded denim jacket.
She gave a small, quiet chuckle as Jodie told her she could relax. The thought that they could be friends made her smile spread, though, she wasn't about to admit that she'd never really had a proper friend, except Aunt Caroline, since she hadn't met anyone new that she liked in about four years, and that was one of the family's maids, Lainie.
"Being friends would be great." Constance commented with a small laugh, "And your delinquencies would be an extremely nice change from the people I'm used to being around." She mentioned, the exciting but drab childhood that Jodie had was another thing she could easily relate to, although hers was probably exciting and drab in a different way. Everyone had always bought her fancy dolls and expensive toys when she was a child, but they bored her after a while; back then the only books she could escape into were silly stories about unrealistic talking dogs, or what her auntie liked to call 'warning stories', about things such as a boy bullied others so Santa only brought him a lump of coal for Christmas and he learnt his lesson and never bullied anyone again, and those weren't much of an escape, the lack of good books she owned was the only reason she'd taken up learning musical instruments and different languages.

"I've never pulled a prank in my life." she gave a gentle shrug, as if this was something that someone would hear every day. There had never really been anyone around to prank.

[Exxie]

Jodie heard Constance say about being friends being nice and she smiled.

"Interesting fact. You're only the fifth friend I've had. Not that numbers matter to me. I suppose that's just my excuse for my occasional lack of people skills." She shrugged. Her delinquencies would be a nice change? She laughed.

"Good to hear, good to hear." She heard the statement about never pulling a prank and Jodie was silent for a moment, thinking before answering.

"Before I came to the Academy, neither had I. But I always have so much energy, and I needed to burn it somehow. Before the Academy, it was in training. Of course, I had even more energy then because other than training, I didn't really do anything but read." Jodie chuckled.

"I wouldn't have dared to prank my teacher, although she probably would've put up with it for the first couple times. But it just wasn't a chance I was willing to take." She laughed at herself, but she knew what the younger version of herself had thought all too well. And it actually made sense because master could've whupped her butt in a fight anytime.

[Constance Bumble]

Constance gave another quick smile, "You're the first friend I've had." She told Jodie, her smile widening very slightly, as Jodie mentioned her occasional lack of social skills. "My social skills seem to be lacking all the time." She chuckled lightly, laughing slightly along with Jodie, she'd never really spoke to people without getting lost in her own thoughts, this was probably the first proper conversation she had had all year.

She listened to what Jodie was talking about and gave a thankful smile and a light sigh, happy to find out that she wasn't the only one who hadn't pulled a prank before the academy, though she was doubtful she ever would, she knew nothing about pranking anybody whatsoever, and knew she would be completely terrible if she gave it a try. "I tend not to do anything but read nowadays." Constance mentioned, with a small smile, she loved to read, it offered her an escape from everyday life.
"What kind of training did you do?" She asked with curiosity filling the expression on her features.

She moved closer to Jodie, since with the distance between them she couldn't really see her. She pulled her case closer to her as she took a couple of steps forward, now able to see Jodie better, she was pretty, that was for sure, she had greyish blue eyes with lovely blonde hair, it was a person's hair colour that always caught Constance's attention, since her's was naturally white, a colour she considered boring, seeing the different kinds of hair colours there were interested her, it was one of the reasons she liked to dye her hair bright colours.

[[ OOC: Sorry for how bad this reply is, I just wanted to get a post up. ]]

[Exxie]

Jodie heard Constance's statement and she blinked rapidly. She had never been on the receiving end of those words before. Always delivering that sort of news. It caught her off guard. But then she smiled, it easily reaching her eyes.

"Then it's a honour. As for the social skills, believe me when I say they come with time. I had next to no social skills until the week I turned sixteen. I knew the formalities 'course, but curtsying to everyone you meet on the street really isn't that practical. Especially when you're wearing jeans." She laughed. Then she heard the statement about reading and she grinned.

"Read any good ones? I haven't been reading lately because...well, hello? Tons of new people I've never met. I'm still in hyper mode. Kind of like a dog that wants nothing more than to meet everyone in a whole park." She chuckled. The description actually seemed to fit her perfectly. When Jodie heard the question about training, she smiled, unsure of how it would be taken. People tended to shrink away. But it was part of what made her her. So it was something she wasn't afraid of admitting either.

"Various training, but it was all to benefit the career path of assassin. I ended up not going down that pathway, but I still know a mix of martial arts, some weapon throwing, and a bit of knowledge about poisons. All of which are kind of prerequisites for being in my family and my parents' social circle." Of course she had no clue what social circle her real parents were in. Probably never would, because she was adopted. She didn't even know the procedure that had gone through. After all, her parents were assassins. That couldn't be passed by Social Services, could it? So much of it was confusing.

When Constance came closer, Jodie immediately noticed her hair colour. White. That was really cool. Constance wasn't saying anything though, just looking at Jodie and Jodie raised an eyebrow slightly in question. For lack of something more interesting to say...

"Is your hair dyed or natural? It's a pretty cool colour. Haven't seen it before." She smiled, slightly fascinated by it. It was unique, and that was cool in itself.

[Constance Bumble]

Constance gave another cheerful smile, she was glad that Jodie had been almost as clueless as Constance was before she'd arrived at the academy. She laughed gently at the curtsying comment, curtsying without a skirt tended to be hard, she remembered from her etiquette lessons back in England, she's turn up to them in jeans or shorts and get scolded for not curtsying properly because she didn't have a skirt, she had only been six, and took to wearing brightly coloured tutu's knowing that her tutor wouldn't approve, though her curtsying improved quite a bit.

"I've read many good ones." She laughed softly, on days when she had fallen ill, or on rare days when she had nothing to do whatsoever she sit in the library reading book upon book, getting lost in fantasy worlds. "It's quite uncommon that I come across a book I don't enjoy."
Constance let out a chuckle, she had never had as much energy as Jodie seemed to have.

An assassin? Jodie had been trained to become an assassin? Constance never considered the fact that they actually existed, they had normally been things she'd read about in her stories. Assassin books were one of her favourite reads, especially the Night Angel series by Brent Weeks, she hadn't been able to put it down. "That's amazing." She smiled softly, "So I take it you don't have plans to become an assassin?" She inquired, Constance would make a terrible assassin, she could barely hurt a fly, and she would very likely end up loosing the directions to her target in the first place.

Constance's eyes looked away from Jodie's hair and back to her face, as she was asked about her hair colour, "It's my natural colour, it's really just extremely extremely blonde." She smiled lightly, if she turned around, Jodie would be able to see the blue ends of her hair in the bun it was tied in. Her hair grew like wild fire, she only dyed it completely blue about a month and a half ago, and already her natural colour took up two thirds of her hair, she constantly need it cutting, which was probably the only thing she was good at doing, and was allowed to do herself, she always styled it the same way though, full bangs and chest length, with the occasional layers if she felt like it. "I much prefer your hair colour." Constance told Jodie, with a small grin.

[Exxie]

Jodie heard Constance laugh at the curtsying comment and had a feeling the other girl knew exactly what she was talking about. It was kind of refreshing to meet someone she could relate a bit to. When she heard that Constance hadn't really come across a book she didn't enjoy, Jodie chuckled.

"True, true. Well, some genres I'm not into, but I know how you feel about books for sure. My parents used to complain about my online book bills. They wouldn't let me go to the library though, so they could hardly say anything. They liked complaining for the sake of it though." She smiled. When she heard the comment about it being amazing and the question about whether Jodie had plans to become an assassin, she shook her head.

"No. I couldn't kill anyone. It was expected of me my whole childhood, but then I started actually thinking for myself. And then things didn't turn out the way any of my family planned, and I ended up here. So I don't have to worry about living up to the expectations of my parents anymore. That took care of that." She grinned. Then she heard that that was Constance's natural hair colour and then she turned around. Ah. Blue ends. So she liked to dye it. She preferred Jodie's colour? A lopsided smile showed itself on Jodie's face.

"Glad you like it. I do. But yours is awesome too. Just think of it this way. Not many people get hair that colour and you were chosen to have it. It's like having a clean slate, only...white...and with hair." She chuckled a bit at her awkwardness.

[Constance Bumble]

Constance nodded at Jodie's comment about books, she adored every genre, but there were some she preferred more than others.
Shock flushed through her face when she was told that Jodie wasn't allowed to go to the library. "Why not?" She asked her eyes wide with astonishment. Library's are one of her favourite places, no matter how big or small, she wouldn't know what she would do if she was told she could no longer go to them, infact they were one of the only places her parents let her leave home alone to go to, even if they didn't understand why she liked them so much, since they found that money could solve the majority of their problems and they could buy her all the books she wanted.

"I see." She gave a soft nod, when Jodie told her she couldn't kill anyone. Giving a small grin when Jodie did, she seemed slightly happy to be away from her parents, or at least happy to be away from their expectations of her. Constance couldn't really think of any high expectations her parents had for her, as long as she got a good job after she'd finished school they'd be perfectly happy. That was one good thing about having a high achieving older brother, all their expectations would be on him.

Constance laughed softly as she was told her hair was like a clean slate. "I suppose so." she nodded, tugging again at the ends of her loose hair. "I think I like it a little more now." Constance told Jodie with a smile, "Thank you."

[Exxie]

Jodie heard the shock in Constance's voice at her statement about not being allowed to go to the library. She gave a sad smile.

"They thought that if I had access to a library, I'd use too much time up reading books. If they had to buy everything, they thought that I'd read less. It ended up it wasn't much, but they wanted my attention on training more. I begged them a few times, but they were super stubborn and wouldn't budge. Little did they know I was just as stubborn as they were. I started writing to fill the time when I had finished my week's allowance of books." Jodie grinned now, thinking of that time now. When Constance agreed about her hair, Jodie chuckled lightly.

"I'm glad, but I have to say that I just speak my mind most of the time. If what comes out is good, well that's awesome. I've gotten in plenty of unintentional trouble though." A lopsided smirk formed on her face.

"Let me know if you ever want to put prankster on your resume. I've pulled a couple lately. They were both in the cafeteria on the same day too. One of which I demanded sprite from the cafeteria ladies and played on the meaning from the fantasy world. One of my brighter ones yet. Pardon the horrible pun." She grinned goofily. She was starting to feel more comfortable around the other girl.

[Constance Bumble]

When Jodie gave a sad smile after Constance asked about the library, she worried that she had said something wrong, or brought up a bad subject, and her face dropped slightly.
The smile returned when Jodie mentioned that she had started writing,"You write?" She asked with wide, curious eyes, shuffling forward, a little closer to Jodie as if she had become truly interested in their conversation, she had been very interested in it before, but hearing that Jodie wrote fascinated her.
"Do you go to the library here?" She asked softly, she was remembered seeing a library, she'd been tempted to go in but if she had, then she wouldn't find the office or her dorm before the evening.

She chuckled as Jodie spoke about speaking her mind, Constance had never really had those problems, her old etiquette teacher had been an old cantankerous woman, who held the belief that children should been seen and not heard, so she had taught her to stay silent for the majority of the time, and she only spoke when a question was asked of her. This was probably the reason for her silent nature she had nowadays.

"I will." Constance laughed gently as Jodie told her to let her know about adding prankster on her resume. "I don't think I'd be able to pull it off though." She said with a smile. Another laugh came on as Jodie told her about he cafeteria antics, she chuckled again, grinning like a loon at the pun.

Constance remembered the music that was playing when she walked in, it hadn't been a bad song at all, Jodie's singing had been fantastic also, from what she heard. "What was the music you were listening to when I came in?" She inquired, watching Jodie, the singers voice had been a little familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on her name. "Your singing was wonderful." Constance told her, "If you don't mind me saying."

[Exxie]

Yeah, she wrote. Just a bit though. Dabbling in stories based off of her favourite stories and movies. That was what happened when you were stuck in the house with books and a computer. She posted them online for others to read, on a special site for that. She had been told they weren't bad either. For the most part, she didn't read others' stories on there. Some of them kind of shocked her.

"Yeah. I write a bit. I figure since I've read so many books, the least I can do is write a few amateur stories to give back. I haven't actually gone to the library here yet. Somehow I thought, school and library means library full of school books. I should probably take a look sometime, now that I'm free to do whatever I want." She smiled, and then heard Constance say she probably wouldn't be able to pull off a prank and Jodie shrugged.

"I think you'd be surprised what you could do with your powers. Wind is a pretty flexible power to have. I pranked a guy in the cafeteria by hitting the light above him with a ball of light, and then flickered the light. Shoulda seen the look on his face!" She slapped her thigh with a laugh. It had been priceless. Then when Constance asked about the music, and then complimented her on her voice, she turned a little red in the cheeks. Jodie also felt kind of awkward.

"Uh...thanks. I don't mind it, but I don't really let anyone hear my voice. And the song was Cupid's Got a Shotgun by Carrie Underwood. I'm a big fan. One of the few country singers I still like to listen to." Compliments made her feel really awkward. It was, like, someone was complimenting you for something you probably would've done even if you were totally horrible at it. And it just didn't seem completely fair that the people who were blessed with the 'special stuff' to receive compliments got compliments and the other people didn't, just because of a luck of the draw. It made her feel sort of funny. She knew that she should be grateful someone thought her singing was nice, but she hid her voice anyways. Jodie didn't even know why. It wasn't that she didn't like compliments. She just wasn't used to them at all. It was always 'not good enough, try harder' when she had trained. They only gave attention to exceptionals, so she worked to become that. But for her, that was normal. Normal was what you were raised to believe was normal, and all the people she knew had done the same as her. She shrugged slightly, not sure what to say to break the silence. Then, some of her spontaneity surfaced.

"What do you like to listen to? I might have some of the music. I brought my whole case." She walked over and picked up the fairly large brown leather briefcase. Leather was her go-to material for almost anything.

"Just music in here. I take one of my favourite hobbies pretty seriously. At least until I take out a CD and goof off to it. And I suppose I don't mind a friend hearing my voice. That is, if you sing along. Otherwise, I might prank you. Just a little." She had a serious look on her face, then it broke into a goofy grin.

"Just kiddin'."