Intimidation

[Isolde Moore]

"Would you like to hear some then?"
Ari looked at her for a few seconds before nodding.
"Ok, Ciao, mi chiamo Isolde, which is Hello, my name is Isolde and Come stai? How are you? See?" she smiled.
She liked to talk different languages. She had actually thought about becoming a translator for many different countries but she needed to be fluent in a lot of the languages.
But she was a determined person and would try her dammed hardest to learn the languages she wanted to do.
"I love languages, I always have so it's good for me to learn different languages. You see I've got my hopes set for becoming a translator, for some countries and for those who need it." she explained.

[Arihant]

Arihant smiled, but a little more sadly than before.
"That's great - that's really noble of you," he said, glancing down at his notes for a second.
It may have sounded petty, but he really hated this whole 'let's-talk-about-your-future' thing that these schools went in for so heavily, because, let's face it, Arihant didn't have a future. He'd stay here until upper sixth, and then...
Disappear again, he guessed. Kira and the others probably wouldn't be staying in touch with him after Orchid was over - and who was to say they'd even be friends by the time he left?
Some life. Really, the best thing he had to hope for was to die young.
Because that's such a good plan, he thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

[Isolde Moore]

Noble?
"Haha, I wouldn't call it noble," Isolde laughed. She brought her art pad towards her and continued on with her spare time tiger drawing on her A3 art pad.
Although she should really be doing her actual art, she preferred to be doing this.
"So, what notes are you copying up on anyway?" her soft voice mingeled with her accent to sound distant and dreamy when really she was concentrating on the detail of the tiger and the answer to her question.

[Arihant]

He made a face, quickly pushing his melancholy thoughts of a moment before. "Physical Control coursework..."
He looked down at the title that he had scrawled along the top of the page in English (English that actually was unreadable; he couldn't even make it out himself) and read it out: - "'Super-speed has made further progression in terms of utilisation and versatility over the past three hundred years than super-strength has over the same period.' Discuss, ensuring to cover all sides of the argument in your answer."
It had been interesting to begin with, but after the fourth or fifth book that failed to mention his own supposed hybrid of these powers it was beginning to depress him a little. He'd only found one sentence to help him - 'There have been recordings of individuals who have professed to wield both these powers, albeit to a lesser level, but these are rare and ill-documented.'
The book went on to disclaim his existence. It was just so very flattering.
"The unfortunate thing," he said to Isolde, "is that I have to do this cr@p for triple credit, because I don't have an elemental power or..."
He hesitated.
"Well, anything else I can really learn about."

[Isolde Moore]

"No elemental power huh?" Isolde's face flickered through about five different expresions: surprise, confusement, acceptance, confusement again before finally settling with questioning.
"It's not like anybody not to have an elemental power but I guess that can happen thought it's not likely. So what powers do you have then?" she asked as she melted her pencilcase and started to make it into weird shapes absent mindedly.

[Arihant]

What?
Oh, no. Oh, nononono. This was not good. This was really not good.
He looked up at her, trying to supress a slight haze of panic that had come over him, but unsuccessfully.
And her face was not reassuring. It didn't look like she was teasing him, or anything, it just looked... open, curious. Like someone who had just asked a perfectly innocuous question that would have an appropriate perfectly innocuous answer.
And he guessed that she thought she had.
Oh, cr@p.
"I- I have general physical enhancement," he stammered, trying to see if his honest answer would spark any change in her face that would show that she was messing with him, but no such luck.
He still couldn't help checking, though.
"And - and I thought you - that everybody knew about my other power by now?"
He didn't mean it come out as a question, but he was so badly flustered that he couldn't help it appearing that way.

[Isolde Moore]

"And - and I thought you - that everybody knew about my other power by now?"
Isolde stared at him perplexed.
"No, I don't...I tend to stick to my own bussiness, I only get into other people's bussiness if they need me there," she half smiled, "Look, if you're uncomfortable about telling me, then don't, I honestly don't mind,"

[Arihant]

The idea of not telling her beckoned to him temptingly, simple as walking through an open door. It would just be so d*mned easy. After all, he barely saw Isolde, and she hardly seemed like the type who engaged in spontaneous physical contact. But...
"No," he said, still with high tension in his voice but not quite as desperate.
He thought about it. Nurse Gornray had told him to tell people. That was one of her conditions - that was one of the factors which combined to him "being safe". She had told him to tell everyone.
So they could protect themselves.
"I'll tell you. I... well, I can't touch people." He clapped his hands together, demonstrating the muffled slapping sound that they made. "That's why... y'know, gloves in June and all."
Then he stopped. A flash, a memory. A face. A mouth, a little round 'o' of disbelief. Shock, arched blonde eyebrows, but no disgust, never disgust, even though that didn't make sense. Wide blue eyes shimmering with some emotion that he could never categorise, try though he might; vivd yet - white as moon, blue as sea, veiled in unshed tears.
Charcoal rose crumbling on mahogany skin.
He breathed in slowly as the picture faded. It did that, sometimes, when he told people. He remembered... that. With Kira.
The first time.
"Touching my skin is fatal to just about everything - certainly to everyone."
He paused briefly, then finished it the way he always did.
"I only have two powers."

[Isolde Moore]

Isolde just stared.
Stared att he wall of books behind him as this went into her brain.
"That must be very hard for you," she said after a minute, "Though it is a very unusual power. How exactly does it affect things?"
She was curious. Just curious. She had never heard of someone being fatal to things, well unless you count being poisonous.
"Are you poisounous?"

[Arihant]

Arihant was kind of surprised. He hadn't got this kind of reaction before.
He'd got the shock.
He'd got the pity.
He'd got the warnings.
He'd got the disgust.
He'd even got the barefaced running away.
But the one thing he'd never had before was curiosity. Not directly, at least. It grew after a while, for some people, but it had never been the knee-jerk reaction.
It would probably be a lot easier if it was, though.
"I... I don't know," he said carefully, wondering. He barely knew anything about it himself.
Except what the doctors had -
"I think it's more a disease," he said quickly before that thought could continue any further. "Like a virus."

[Isolde Moore]

Isolde sat there thinking this over.
"Never heard of that before, it must be an extremely rare power...if that's what you want to call it," she laughed without humour.
"So I take it that's what all this," she gestured at the sheets of paper and books lying around the desk, "Is for?"

[Arihant]

Arihant blinked. Isolde certainly was perceptive - he didn't like to call it a power, regardless of how much he had found himself doing so lately.
"Not exactly," he said. "I mean, you're right, it's a very rare... ability, but it turns out that it's so rare that I can't really research it at all. It's not in any books."
The poison stuff was, but he'd skipped that over after reading it briefly. There were too many differences in the manifestations and symptoms for the writing to actually apply to him.
"So I don't have a class for it, which means no homework, so that's good." He smiled. "But it also means I have to do lots of extra research on my other power."

[Isolde Moore]

"Well, that's kind of sucky," she she frowned but her eyes were still burning out curiosity.
"If you want any help, I'll be happy to oblige," she doodled in the corner of the page absently as she thought about his fatality "power".
She did have homework but she didn't want to do it...besides most of it was catching up.
"So, how did you find out about this place?" she changed the subject to the school.

[Arihant]

Arihant wondered briefly if he should tell her, but then decided that he might as well. He didn't exactly have to specify; there were plenty of reasons why he could have been in that bar in Austria - no, Europe, stick with Europe.
"Well, I was staying in Europe at the time," he said carefully, looking down at his notes and continuing writing in order to try and make his words seem as nonchalant as possible. "I was in a bar, and I heard two Englishmen speaking about this place and I thought - "
He cut himself off , and reconsidered his words for a moment. "My family w- is" - that was a close save there - "non-magical, so I didn't know there were schools for people with powers, and I thought it would be best to check it out."
He laughed before saying the next part, but it didn't really sound genuine. "To be honest, I thought they might be able to get rid of my power. Pretty stupid, huh?"

[Isolde Moore]

"No. It was worth a shot. But then again, getting rid of a power might make you feel empty...but if you don't like it and you want to get rid of it itwas worth a shot right? but then coming here might have beent he best thing that you could do or can do. Where you won't be...hidden and you won't be a threat to anyone cause they know of what you can do. They won't be afraid of you, just your power," she put a hand on his shoulder," You know what I mean? I hope so."
She took her hand of his shoulder and started finishing of her tiger.
She was used to saying non sensical things..well non sensical to the people she was saying the words to but made sense to her. She just hadn't got the hang of phrasing what she was trying to say, yet.
But no one should be living in fear of something like that and if people knew about his ability then he couldn't do much harm because they would avoid him and he was taking precautions with wearing gloves and all.
She guessed she looked at it in a different perspective to him. She had read psycology books and she had gotten to know the human brain a bit. People usually feared a power or an ability itself, not the person with it...in most cases anyway.