om_main | Laura and River - Backdated to April 29

The girls meet and are unsurprisingly unfazed by each other. Dancing is involved. It's a thing!

It was an odd sensation that River couldn't really describe. She knew that someone was there, but it was a different blank than she had experienced with Ellie. With Ellie, she got nothing but her presence, and what Ellie sent out towards her. With whoever this was, she was getting their presence, but also something else, something she couldn't interpret in any way, something she couldn't even be sure could be interpreted, like psychic static.

The odd presence had been with her for a good five minutes when River reached her destination, the dance studio, and turned around in the doorway, watching the apparently empty corridor. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," she singsonged.

From a darkened doorway down the hall, a slim shadow of a girl stepped out, about six inches taller than River, with similar dark hair, but a pair of uncanny green eyes that almost seemed to glow beneath the warm lights of the mansion.

"Your mind's off limits," River stated, bemused, as she watched the other girl curiously. "But not the usual way."

"It's always been that way," Laura informed her. "Professor Xavier can read my thoughts if he tries, but he said that it takes effort."

And Professor Xavier's telepathy was quite a lot more powerful than River's; it was no wonder she could get nothing off of the other girl. "Why were you following me?" she asked, moving on to another topic for now.

"I follow all of the new students a little, at first. I...learn their scents. Their sounds and movements," Laura explained.

River frowned slightly in thought, before she asked, "Are you Laura Kinney?" It would make sense, given the powers Simon had listed for her, but since he did not know everybody's powers, there might be someone else with the ability to track scents.

Laura gave a small nod. "And you are River Tam."

There was no point confirming it, since Laura clearly already knew that. "Have you got my scent now?"

There was another nod, and Laura strolled closer. "May I watch you dance?"

"If you tell me what my scent is like," River offered in exchange, hopefully. She wished that she could feel it off of Laura, so that she wouldn't have to try and put words on something that was probably not easily described, but that avenue was sadly close to her.

The girl came to a stop a few feet away, hands hanging limply down by her sides. "Lycra, sunlight, paper, mango, cotton, vanilla, and kiwi." She paused. "There's more, but that is the main composition."

"What if I change clothes, or shampoo and shower gel and deodorant?" River asked curiously. Would there just be sunlight and paper left? What did sunlight even smell like? She really wished she could feel Laura's mind.

"The main scents change, but your pheromones don't. It is difficult to explain," Laura shrugged, perhaps in apology.

"I wish you weren't static," River stated, and turned to walk into the dance studio, expecting Laura to come with if she wanted to watch. "Then I could know."

Laura followed obediently, appreciative of the grace with which River moved. "Maybe one day I won't be."

"Or I'll become good enough to get through, with effort," River answered, skipping the 'maybe' because she was determined to become this good. So, of course, it would happen. She walked over to the dock and put her iPod in, scrolling through the music to find Philip Glass's Metamorphosis pieces, which were perfect for a quick warm-up that would segue right into dancing.

After a moment, Laura moved to perch on the end of a table, watching quietly. "Do you enjoy dancing?"

"I love it," River confirmed, without missing a beat in her relatively easy warm-up routine.

"It's expression. Like Kevin's art," Laura decided quietly, tilting her head slightly as she studied the willowy movements.

River did nothing to hide her genuine smile. "It is. It's art, too." And a sport, all rolled into one.

"I like dancing to Pietro's music, but it's different," Laura thought, aloud. Her kata was similar too, though more structured than whatever it was that River was doing.

"It is, and it isn't," River agreed, while still going through her routine, assuming that Laura meant less normalized dancing.

Laura tilted her head curiously. "Why?"

"It's expression as well," River explained the way she saw it, "but free in a different way. There is no frame. Just music, and your body, and you can do anything." She loved both dearly.

The older girl was quiet at that; even looking somewhat surprised, if it could show on such an emotionless face. Laura had never thought of the fact that she was expressing herself when she danced with Pietro. Mostly, she mimicked his movements - but she did enjoy the freedom of the movement, and the way the music made her feel. "You can do anything..." she repeated.

"One man's dance is another man's seizure," River confirmed.

Laura blinked at the phrase, not entirely sure she understood. But she thought, at least, that she understood the underlying concept of what River was trying to say. "I'm not used to...expressing myself."

"Dance is a great way to learn." River lowered her leg, dropped out of her pose. "What kind of music do you like?" Ballet could wait. No time like the present.

"I enjoy instrumental music when meditating, especially when it is played on natural instruments. Pietro says that I also enjoy trance, techno, and punk. I very much enjoyed the music he played for me from his adopted parents' heritage," Laura answered thoughtfully.

River thought it over quickly as she moved over to her iPod, then put on some Gogol Bordello, and turned around to smile hopefully at Laura. "Will this do?"

Laura's features never changed, but she watched River closely. "You want me to dance?"

"I want you," River answered, all too solemnly, "to express yourself. I can change the music, if this is not adequate."

"I...don't know if I can," Laura told the other girl honestly, though she slipped off of the table to her feet. Any other time she had danced, she had followed Pietro's movements - but there were times, when he was close, and things were warm, and her blood had other ideas that she thought she might have taken liberties. She doubted that was what River had in mind.

"You can try," River answered. "Trying is, in itself, a form of expression." And the best way to give Laura her best chance was to dance herself, which River immediately started doing, letting the lively chords inspire her moves.

Laura did try, beginning to slowly mimic some of River's moves, at first. "Do you listen to many kinds of music?"

"Every kind I come across," River confirmed, noticing the mimicking but saying nothing of it. "I've never met a music I couldn't dance to."

"I am learning about them," Laura reported, even as she shifted on the balls of her feet, following River's moves as though she were going through her kata. "May I come...watch you and listen sometimes?"

"Only if you join in once in a while," River answered, resisting the urge to dance faster, to force Laura to find her own moves. Not yet. Sometimes, it paid off to be patient.

"As you wish," the older girl agreed solemnly.