Flashback: Fall 2001
2/23/2007
Logfile from Jubilee.
=XS= Classroom and Arboretum - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
A cross between a greenhouse and a study hall, this room fosters growth in more ways than one. The center of the room is clear, revealing a patterned marble floor beneath tables and chairs spaced out at regular intervals to face a blackboard and the larger desk and chair of the teacher. The rest of the room is taken up with tropical trees in gigantic clay pots, reaching from the floor to almost the ceiling, as well as a plethora of smaller exotic plants, with a small fountain gurgling and bubbling in pleasant background noise. Made almost entirely of glass and white-painted steel, the room needs no artificial lighting on all but the most stormy of days. French doors open to the back patio and pool.
Fall 2001.
Jubilee slumps in her chair, her head resting on the chair back and her eyes roaming the ceiling without really seeing it. Her feet spread into the aisle in front of her and she appears to be trying unsuccessfully to sleep without closing her eyes. a pen lays flat on the desktop underneath her fingertips.
Piotr, on the other hand, is paying a lot more attention, or at least he is trying to. Seated near the back of the class, more through courtesy than by choice, he shifts in a chair that is a little too small to comfortably accomodate him and readies his pen conscientiously to write. The margins of the page look at him invitingly, tempting doodles, but for now he resists.
The desk next to the little Jubilation Lee is a rather quiet Rogue. She's bundled up perhaps even more so than usual, brown eyes moving along at her text book. Her hair floods around her face, and although already having it for an entire month, she can't help but glance up at the screen of white strands pouring over her right eye. Her pen moves across her paper, the lettering stiff and exact. The handwriting much more fit to a weathered old man than a young teen female.
The teacher of this particular class is perhaps not the most conventional educator. "...and so, Socrates was found guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens and sentenced to death by drinking poisonous hemlock," Kurt intones. His German accent adds at least some flare to he subject matter. He also, is perched in an unconventional position. He stands upon the desk at the front of the room, crouched down comfortably, with a thick philosophy text resting upon one knee. His tail moves in a slow, nearly hypnotic sway behind him. "Everyone read the assignment of last class, ja? Can any of you tell me the last words of Socrates?"
"Are we done yet?" She can't help it. The words slip out unbidden into the answering quiet of the the room. Jubilee lifts her head, startled awake by the sound of her own voice.
An anxious glance across to Jubilee creases Piotr's expression heavily and he gives a tiny cough, raising a hesitant and slightly disproportionate hand to draw Kurt's attention away from his sleepy friend. "Ah, he, ah--" he attempts, fumbling and embarrassed at speaking up in front of everyone, "he said they should make an offering to A-- Ee--" He gives up, looking rather pinkly miserable.
Rogue starts to flip through the text, figuring doing so is technically cheating, but not really caring either way. Her fingers pause in mid-flip of a page, head turning to Jubilation. Brows knit down and a tension takes hold of her jaw in the utmost serious look on the other girl. There is the slimmest of muffled annoyance grinding through Rogue's teeth.
Yellow eyes fall on Jubilee for a moment, "No, Miss Lee. I believe that was what the man administering the poison said, perhaps. Were you reading the right pages?" He does not miss a beat, though. "Actually, the last words of Socrates were 'Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Please, don't forget to pay the debt." Professor Wagner's sharp teeth are exposed for a moment in the grin he favors his class with. "Can anyone explain the signifigance of these words?"
Jubilee blushes and scoots even farther down in her seat, almost sliding /off/ it under the table top. "He'd had a craving for fried chicken the night before?" she offers helpfully in penance of sorts.
Having used up about a month's worth of volunteering information in front of people, Piotr simply hunches over his desk and attempts to avoid meeting his teacher's eyes as he copies down the last words, and then illustrates the line with a helpful cartoon of a cock.
"Sometimes you're as daft as ah hollow acorn," Rogue spits at Jubilee, rolling her eyes up with surge of her southern sass. "Ah'm thinkin'," she begins, rounding her eyes back towards Professor Wagner. "That is has something to do with settlin' things with God in a sense? Sorta a rest in peace thang? Cocks, erm, roosters are what wake people up in the morning, ain't they?"
The professor picks up a notebook and a pen, scribbling little notes down as the girls offer their takes on this. He nods his head slowly, a blue curl bobbing slightly in the front of his hair. "And Piotr, do you have any opinion on these last words? I would like very much to hear your interpretation."
"What the heck does that even /mean/?" Jubilee hisses back to Rogue as she squirms back up into her seat and leans over the desk to fold her arms across it.
Looking up with moderate horror at being addressed individually, Piotr's cheeks go a shade of pink darker and he mumbles uneasily, "I think Rogue is right?" as his head sinks backwards towards his shoulders, attempting to back away.
"It means someone needs to spend a little less time pickin' their nose," Rogue observes dryly. "An' more time doing their homework." She leans back, dropping her pen to the desk. "But at least now more oxygen can get to your brain." Pete gets a shallow glance back.
Herr Wagner gently sets himself between Jubilee and Rogue's snapping with, "Perhaps, Rogue, Jubilation has taken to her nose as other philosophers take to their navels?" His smile is gentle and playful. It becomes warmer when he turns it back to Piotr, "I would be quite interested to hear your personal interpretation, Piotr. Agreement is not very philosophical," he chimes.
In response, Jubilee sticks her pinky finger up her nose and makes a show of digging for gold while making a face at Rogue. That is, until Professor Wagner intervenes and draws her attention. She sheepishly pulls her finger out of her nose and grins at him before turning her attention to Piotr as well. NO PRESSURE.
Piotr's eyebrows raise in a floundering expression at Kurt's question that redoubles as Jubilee turns to look at him and he ventures a strained, "I am sorry. I-- I am thinking she is right," before looking down hard at his paper and hoping it will somehow remove people asking questions and staring from his immediate vicinity.
Rogue takes a deep breath, not bothering to hide her expression of disgust. Her brown eyes turn away as the Professor steps between them, looking guilty with a deep seeded irritation. As Kurt pulls attention to Piotr, Rogue cannot help but leaning forward and peeking at Jubilee to give her a /look/.
Kurt relents, relaxing his gentle pressure upon Piotr. "Perhaps if you have more thoughts upon it, you can write them for me?" His smile is a relaxed thing, and he even rocks slightly backwards in his perch upon the desk to emphasize this. It almost may look like he is about to fall down. "Now, am I lucky enough to have a student who recalls what Socratic Method is?" His tone is lightly taunting, as if daring someone to volunteer for him.
Without looking, Jubilee reaches out and shoves Rogue's shoulder. "Is that the things doctors have to swear toooo?" she carols out.
There is no one sitting at the back of the classroom. Definitely not anyone large and Russian and currently rather pink. Piotr is, in fact, doing his very best impression of a chronically embarrassed piece of furniture and staying as quiet as he possibly can.
Rogue nearly falls out of her desk at the shove. With a growl she tips herself back up and sends a kick aimed at Jubilee.
The Amazing Nightcrawler has quick reflexes, something learned in midair in the cirus in his youth. There is a bamf of air rushing away from his suddenly teleporting body, followed by another when he appears between the two girl, one foot on either desk. Rogue's footwear ends up thumping against a three-digited hand, and Kurt looks down to Jubilee with an amused smile, as if he were unaware of what he had just done. "Very close, Jubilation. You are thinking of the Hippocratic Oath." The smell of sulphur whispers out of the black smoke his teleporting left behind.
Jubilee jumps and blinks up at the teacher, then coughs and waves her hand in front of her face at the smell left behind. "Ew... Professor Wagner. You totally farted in transport, didn't you? That's like, so gross," she says, escaping her seat and moving back a row to plo down next to Piotr.
The characteristic sound of Kurt's teleporting draws Piotr's attention up momentarily from his paper, his eyes seeking out the teacher's destination though his head doesn't move, the better to remain invisible. This is thwarted by Jubilee's arrival, and he offers her a tiny, thin-lipped smile before hurrying his attention back to his paper and searching for notes to write.
Rogue squeaks as her shoe connects with the hand of the Professor. Quickly wide, tense eyes fly up to the blue mutant, blinking innocently. At Jubilee's words she wilts a little bit. "Can me an' someone switch desks, Professor? /Someone/ is distracting." Nostrils flare a little as she sneaks a quick glance to the culprit of her request.
Kurt looks up as Jubilee moves to sit beside Piotr. A tiny sigh causes his shoulders to sink at the girls and their current behavior. "I believe that desks have already been switched, Rogue." His yellow eyes fall on Jubilee. "I would ask that you ask me in the future before relocating, ja? If it is not too much to ask." He hops down from his perch upon the pair of desks and returns to his own, sitting down upon the edge of it this time. "Is there any reason between the two of you that we cannot return to the philosophy lecture?"
Jubilee sings out an unrepentant, "Sorry, Professor Blue! I will!" How can one stay mad at heeeer? She twists sideways in her chair and sticks her feet up on the edge of Piotr's, then pulls her notepad onto her lap and looks like she might /actually/ be settling down to gasp! take notes!
Rogue glances over, peering at the girl as she moves. "Hrmp," she says, and acts very much as if the move was all her idea in the first place. "Uh, no, Professor. Ah'm good. We're fine." Rogue turns attention firmly to her textbook, dragging it closer and picking up her pen. The yellow plastic of her utensil gets the majority of her glare now, imagination morphing it into a tiny little yellow jacket.
There is not a whole lot of room on Piotr's chair for both him and Jubilee's feet, no matter how marginally they occupy the seat, but nevertheless he shifts himself as far to the side as space will allow to give her room. As Jubilee becomes more attentive, his own attention wanes just enough to allow him to draw a little stickfigure cartoon of Kurt's feat of timing and reflexes.
The teacher takes up his philosophy text once more and looks slowly over the small class. He nods his head once in satisfaction that the bickering has been tamed for the moment, and begins once more to delve into the exciting realm of Socrates. "Now, about Socratic Method..." He begins, his tail swishing.
Fall 2001 - Class!