basic_powers | Charles Xavier Shielding lessons, first run

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Charles Xavier Shielding lessons, first run

As Tyler jogs in from his practice outside, he glances around the bar room proper to try and spot Charles for his next lesson. Seeing however, as it is evening for the Bar and the dinner crowd is making it difficult to spot anyone. Even standing up on rafter above the crowd isn't helping, and really, he's looking forward to this lesson.

Less likely to get him blown up, or grant superpowers, after all.

So then, it comes down to how best to get his teacher's attention in a crowd...without alerting the rest of Milliways.

Scooones, SCOOOOoones, Scones, Scones, Scones, Crumbly buttery scoooooooOOOOOOoones, sung inside of his head.

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Charles is rereading one of his favorite parts of The Sword in the Stone as Tyler sort of reminds him of War.

When the mental call of scones starts up, he laughs and holds his hand up, waving in the direction he feels Tyler's mind to be, "Over here."

...yes the boy did just mentally, 'wuff' at the the waving and start running over the rafters to a spot to drop near Charles.

He's gotten a bit more dirty than the last time Charles saw him, but that's to be expected, between the age and the workout.

"Ready, come on, it'll be easier up at my room."

The puppy mannerisms are adorable and oddly make sense, he really needs to introduce Tyler to Raven.

By the time Tyler drops to the table, there's a plate with a selection of scones, Charles made a rat move rather quickly and picks it up along with his book, "Yes, I'm all ready. You're amazing up there."

The puppy mannerisms are just marks of having clocked so many hours in such a shape for the purposes of therapy time.

"I've been practicing running up there for years, but I've still got to get used to the new layouts." And he knows he's got lots more to learn yet. He's still got martial arts to practice tomorrow morning too.

Oooh, so that's what scones look like!

Picking up the plate carefully, and leaving a tip for the wait-rat, Tyler starts jogging through the crowd and up the stairs to the rooms.

These scones are two different shapes, the classic wedge shape and also a few that could almost be an American biscuit but not quite,

"How much has the layout changed since the attack?"

A lot of people who return seem to be spend a lot of their time noting damages or repaired things when they enter.

"There's more levels of rafters, and the way they're set up now is.." Well, the old mental maps show up, compared to the old ones, and the memories of the layout of Milliways before, even a few hidden passages. "They're not so regularly spaced as before. And they've got different bracings."

And so far the locations of the upper rooms haven't been moving at all since the repairs.

"Hm, I see. One of the first things I did when I was here was help a little boy, Fry Sandhu get some tables back where they used to be. It reassured him to have the arrangement back where it should be,"

The mental map is useful and though Charles isn't sure when he'll go in the rafters, it's fascinating.

"I'll get used to the new layouts eventually." There's no worries there, as Tyler extracts his room key at #238 and pushes the door open into a room that's really more like a dorm with a bath attached.

The supports and walls have been fixed and painted, and his shelf of treasures has been set up again over his desk...while the bed, bookshelves and dresser are still a little messy.

"Here we are."

It's a comfortable room and Charles smiles and walks over to look over the treasures,

"Milliways seems good at making it possible to adapt, it seems to welcome constant change."

Tyler's not going to laugh at that, even if it is funny that he comes to this place for something passing within radio range of normal.

There's a bird's nest, a snakeskin, demon bunny skull, a tiny perfectly white glowing stone like a pearl and a small zoo of homemade origami animals arranged carefully up on the shelf.

He's just going to clean up the room a bit and wash up as well. Not a lot of chairs but it should be okay sitting on pillows or the coverlet from the bed, right?

Charles will sit wherever there's space as the idea is for Tyler to feel safe and relaxed.

After looking at everything, Charles turns to see if he can help with arranging things.

The most space is on the floor, really, so when Tyler's got the pillows set up, he's sitting on the floor cross-legged and waiting across from another pillow.

"Ready!"

When the pillows are set up, Charles gets himself arranged on the other one,

"Good. Now to start out, let's look at what you have now. Walk me through your current shields and what you want to be able to do with them."

"Right now they're...kind of like moving foggy panels. In different rings." Tyler says after a moment, taking a breath to get the thoughts together. The shields are foggy panels, and set up moving around inside of each other with the most important things hidden in the center.

"Why foggy panels? Rings makes perfect sense as that provides various levels of privacy. I'm going to just look to see what they look like, let me know whenever I'm somewhere you don't want me to be,"

Charles leans on his hand to focus on how the shield's look.

"Okay."

The movable rings aren't all solid pieces, there's gaps in the fog that if one pushed to look through, they'd get a look into something of the next layer.

Some gaps are intentional, and within the first layer is most of the stuff that Tyler is noticing around him, the running thoughts of sensations and input. It's there that he's got most of his attention focused, on that first layer, to...he's encountered a psychic before, so there's awareness of his own thoughts.

There's some fear, but determination is beating it by far. The second layer, conscious decisions, there's more gaps here, because there still needs to be things passed back and forth. Third layer, associations, and it's a much thicker ring, and that's where there's variations in the thickness of the fog. There's another layer, but it's moving so slowly, with only thin little cracks of openings inside of it, with glimpses of real people in armor, or other things inside, fog and a light inside of that. Whatever is at the center, and just surrounding it, is the one he's doing his best to keep hidden.

"It looks like the set up between the different levels is logical and working for you. Let's see about making those walls less foggy and more solid and sturdy. What's represents to you safety in terms of a physical space or manifestation? Something that we can build those walls out of."

He...generally only feels safe if there's an escape route. He's never felt especially secure around his parents, safe sometimes, but never really secure. That's out, and the place where he grew up, and he's moved around so much it's hard to pick a place...

Except...Milliways. He doesn't know how that's constructed though.

"What is it about Milliways that makes you feel safe? Let's see if we can find elements to work into the shields. They don't even have to be incredibly concrete. It's the idea and the purpose behind them that holds the power."

"The people here."

...he didn't need to think about that much. It's the family he has here that makes him feel safe, like this place is home. They'd protect him, and he'd protect them with that determination.

"Then work them into your wall. Work their strongest traits and then whenever you think of your wall, think of them and it's there and as solid as they are. It might take some time to get right but you need to feel safe in your head."

He needs to feel like all of his secrets are safe.

"...build from the center, then outward."

The determination and the desire to do good, all of the heroes he's know. Ray's ability to stay sane in the weirdest conditions, that's the framework of the walls, engineered mobile framework, like rebuilding the gauntlets. And energy walls. Though it's getting harder to hold those up into place, they're hard to see or get through.

"Hnnh..."

Should he shouldn't he, stop that second guessing, what do you need to do? Trust.

"Could the rafters be useful to have a mixture of physical and more abstract elements?"

He doesn't understand all the references in Tyler's thoughts but he can see they're effective and will keep talking and helping him do what he knows how to.

That's...that's a good idea. Rafters to get too and from areas of thought. It's a three-dimensional maze, and growing a little like a tree. Different rafters moving around to different pathways or hidden rooms.

Easiest access is at the first level of rafters above the crowd/observations. And it's a solid set up for now, a space that offers a lot of room to watch for incomers.

Charles smiles as the shields grow, "Yes, make it your space."

There's lots of space between the rafters to look out for things or to watch other rafters as they extend or retract, the higher up they go. Hidden doors in the walls, here and there.

The other rooms might move around, but with the walls of weirdness Milliways and it's various patrons provide... and it's much more secure. He can build more onto it later, he's still got lots of room to grow.

It can be adapted as he needs it and only he knows his way around it, "Wonderful."

"Thanks."

"You did most of it,"

Which made Charles' teaching job much easier as it was more like leading.

"I'm still learning stuff."

Maybe in time, the set-up he has will be something completely different.

For now though, he feels a lot more secure, it's less likely he's going to let something slip now.

"Ready to try those scones now."

"And you won't stop learning, that's the joy of it. Right, I asked for a good variety so we have cheese, date and the classic scone. Also jam and clotted cream which you have to have with scones. Would you like some tea if I ordered it?"

When it comes to tea, Charles becomes rather British.

"Is it anything like japanese green tea?"

He does honestly like learning stuff, provided it's not likely to send him to the infirmary. But don't tell some of his teachers that.

"It's stronger in a different way and you usually add milk and sugar to it or sometimes lemon. It's a black tea instead of a green tea. Though if you like green tea better we can get that."

"I'll try it with milk and see how I like it. Green tea was okay, I might have it again if I ever order riceballs for lunch."

"Then one moment,"

He finds a rat and soon returns with a tea set of English Breakfast tea with warm milk, cubes of sugar and lovely plates. The pattern though if you look closely is made out of little hobbit holes with hobbits on the edges.

...Okay, tea in Milliways is really, really neat. Hobbits!

Ray did take the time to read the Hobbit to him at least once.

"Hobbit tea!"

Charles laughs as that's just perfect,

"Well, hobbits know how to do tea properly."

"And they don't waste time going about it," Tyler grins, carefully picking up a tea cup. "Okay..how do you do a proper tea?"

"I pour out the tea for us and then you take a sip and decide what you want to add to it. Then we drink our tea and eat our scones slathered with whatever we'd like,"

He's always loved that scones are one of the foods that you're encouraged to make a mess with.

...Tyler has decided with that first cup that his tea needs milk and two lumps of sugar.

And five seconds after his first bite of a scone with clotted cream he really likes proper tea.

Thank all the gods he spends so much time working out or he'd never burn off all these calories. For now, there is nothing but delight in a new thing.

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Charles Xavier Shielding lessons, first run

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