2013-09-26 - Them Bones

Late afternoon, well after school has let out, finds Central Park fairly busy. Kids and bicycles crowd the paths, people taking a leisurely stroll after work...

Sitting up in one of the middle branches of a tree hanging over one of the trails, Lorelei is having a snack before flying back to Xavier's. The winged girl takes a huge bite out of her second burger, a bottle of water ballanced on one knee with a fast food bag on the other. She squeeks in dismay and almost falls out of the tree trying to catch the wrapper from her first burger when it falls, dropping her water bottle in the process, "Damnit!" Now she has to jump down to get it.

Malcolm sits on a bench, adding some brownish liquid from a silver flask into the coffee cup before turning his attention back to reading the obituaries. The distinctive scent of grave dirt rests around him. Around his neck is a lanyard, with a badge hanging half way down his chest.

It's not often that you seen a brightly green-skinned ginger in a miniskirt floating and flying through Central Park ... but, this is one of those times. Still quite 'new' to Earth, and Earth Culture, M'gann is just on the other side of the tree that Lorelei is on, and she floats over to the other tree stuck girl. And, she offers a smile, "I can help!" And, so she does. Helpfully, M'gann drops down to the ground, picks up the water bottle, and flies it back up to the winged girl. She's VERY helpful, see?!? She seems pleased with herself, and promptly introduces herself, "Hi! I'm Megan Morse." It's just easier for Earth people to pronounce, she figures. TV taught her that.

There's a... green girl? Lore blinks in surprise when her bottle is handed back to her, "Um... Thanks." She reaches in her back to offer a small handful of fries, "Fry?" Whether the greasy treat is accepted or not, she drops her half eaten burger back in the bag and jumps down, a full twelve feet, to flair her wings and catch herself just three feet off the ground and land relatively lightly, "I dropped some trash down here somewhere..." So now she has to search for it. She does her best not to litter, after all.

Apparently, the trash blew over next to where the coffee drinking man is sitting.

Malcolm raises his eyebrow as the bottle lands ten yards from him, his eyes drifting up the trunk of the tree to see the pair of girls. He jumps backwards, falling from the bench, and sprawls on the ground with a thud. His coffee cup breaks open, the coffee and whiskey spilling into the grass. Looking around, and seeing a general blaise from the other park patrons, Malcolm stands to his feet and brushes himself off. He pats his chest, above the plastic con badge, and exhales softly.

He lifts up his cup, checks to see how much of its contents are left, sighs again, and tosses it into the trash. Then, he throws away the trash that the tree girl dropped. Looking up at them, he unscrews the lid to his flask and drinks a swig.

"Fry?" M'gann stares at the french fry as if for all the world she'd never seen one before, then takes it between two fingers, floating there as if all the world her feet were on solid ground, asks Lorelei, "Are they as good as Oreos?" But she doesn't wait for an answer. She noms the fry, then beams. "They are very delicious. May I have another?" So focused on the food, is she, that she hasn't seen Malcolm, and so focused on helping Lorelei, she hasn't noticed the other girls wings, just yet.

"Fries are great." Lore grins,tossing the bag up at Megan, "I'm Lore Sayer." She wrinkles her nose, "Well... Lorelei, really, but everyone calls me Lore." She waves a hand at the bag, folding her wings close against her back and slipping a patchwork leather duster on to cover her wings, "Help yourself! I was just having a snack before heading home." She turns her attention to the ground, frowning a little, "I know I dropped trash somewhere around here..." That's when she spots Malcolm and flushes, "Um... Hi. Are ya okay?" The girl's accent is very obviously Texan. Malcolm raises an eyebrow, looking Lorelei over. "Lorelei Sayer, daughter of Jasmine and Clancy Sayer. Born May 23rd, 17 years ago."

Clapping her hands together, M'gann points at Malcolm, and cheerfully responds, "Malcolm Dirge, son of Charles Gallen and Stacy Dirge who didn't get married, born on July 13th, 28 years ago!" She seems very happy about all of this, as if it were some kind of game.

Lorelei's eyes widen in shock when this strange man gives her name and birthdate, taking a step back, "H-how do you know that?" She looks up at Megan and back at this creepy guy that seems to know so much about her, "Wh-" The girl gulps nerviously, a light breeze tugging at her hair and clothes, "Who are you?" The poor girl looks really freaked out, particularly when Megan spouts off even more information about the strange man. Malcolm looks down into his flask, sniffing at it. Whiskey, older than he is, nothing added that he didn't know about. He looks up at the green girl, his mind racing to wonder what ailment she was suffering from. Maybe she was already dead, though she didn't have the right glow... he takes another drink, then turns his attention back to Lorelei. "I dug your grave."

M'gann tells Lorelei, "He's Malcolm Dirge. I just told you that," cheerfully. Then, she looks quizically at Malcolm, pauses a moment, and then her green cheeks pinken, some. "Oh. I thought we were playing a telepathy game. Sorry." She puts her hands behind her back, and one foot behind the other, even though she's still floating, looking utterly embrassed.

Lorelei looks even more freaked out when told that she has a grave, "But I'm not dead!" She backs away, her wings twitching under her duster as though she's wanting to fly away as fast as they can take her. She glances back at Megan again, "Y-you're telepathic, then?" Weirdly, that's not not anywhere near as frightening as the fact that she has a grave, "So you're a muti-" She makes a face and corrects herself, "A mutant, too?" Malcolm smirks. "Of course you're not dead. I knew that at the time too. Doesn't change the fact that the plot was paid for, and that I'd already carved a tombstone. No Death-date, I don't lie on that sort of thing." He shrugs, finishing the contents of his flask. A frown covers his face. "Just... make other funeral arrangements for yourself. The grave I dug for you is occupied."

"Of course I'm a telepath. All Martians are," assures M'gann of Lorelei, as if that were utterly normal, and common knowledge. She slowly floats down to the ground, still looking mostly abashed at her misunderstanding of the situation. She tilts her head towards Malcolm, "You're scaring her. You should stop," she says, half-scolding, half-pointing out, and half-asking. "It's not nice."

Malcolm smiles coldly "There is much to be scared of, Death is not among them. I am but a grave digger, and that is all I know."

"I- occupied?" Now Lore sounds confused, "What do you mean 'occupied'?" She gives her head a quick shake and twists the cap off of her water bottle to gulp down half of the contents as though she wishes they were a little more... potent... than water. She frowns, blinking a couple of times and looking at Megan, "Wait... So, you're, like, a real alien?" She looks the other girl over for a moment, "I guess that explains why you're green, anyway..." Malcolm's words earn a shiver and another quick gust of wind from behind the winged girl.

M'gann unwraps her hands, her foot comes forwards to take a more self-assured posture as Malcolm continues to play up the role of the man at Lorlei's death door, so to speak. She nods, emphatically towards Lorelei. "Yes. I'm a Green Martian." She smiles, broadly, as if Lorelei's observation were something borne from keen intellect, or observation. Then, she puts her hands on her hips, and looks back at Malcolm. "You," she says, "Should be nicer to people."

Malcolm says, “I mean that there is a casket and a corpse within the grave that holds your name." Malcolm shakes his head, "And what is there is of no concern to you. Either of you." His smile grows larger, watching Lorelei shiver. At the Martian's scolding, his head snaps quickly back to her. "There is a reason I spend my days walking amongst the bones.”

"I, uh... Okay." Lore shivers again, "Hey, Megan? Can I get the burger out of that bag?" She needs some food to make the world feel like it makes sense again! She very deliberately takes a step back away from the creepy Malcolm, "I'm gonna have to go home soon." She wrinkles her nose, "It's gonna get dark soon." And she can't see to get anywhere when it's dark!

M'gann's eyes light up. "Do you have a puppy?" Suddenly, the Green Martian Girl looks utterly excited, and her wide, lovely eyes search high and low for the puppy. Afterall, puppies like bones. And that's likely the only reason anyone would ever play with bones, right?! Distantly, because PUPPY! she hears Lorelei's words, and hands her the burger and bag back.

Malcolm looks at M'gann curiously, not realizing that she's speaking to him for a few moments. "No, I do not have a mongrel."

"Thanks." Lore takes the bag back and digs out her partially eaten burger to take a big bite, wrinkling her nose at Malcolm's comment on dogs, "How can you not like dogs?" She starts to take another bite, but pauses with her mouth open and the burger less than an inch from losing another bite out of it, "Actually... if it's a hyper puppy or a big dog, I'd agree with you." She wrinkles her nose, imagining a dog chewing on her wing and breaking bones. Malcolm says, “They dig where they are not wanted. Searching for things buried for a reason. They knock furniture over, and break things. They capture the love of children, only to die too soon and steal that bit of innocence away.”

M'gann seems to almost pout. "Oh." Dejected, because of No Puppy, she looks back to Lorelei, "I got to pet a Puppy, once. He was very, very nice," she tells the girl, as if to reassure her that all dogs were angelic, lovely, and would be really swell to the bird-like mutant. Then, she looks back to Malcolm. Stares at him for a long moment, "But they're cute. And very furry." As if these two qualities, alone, were pure redemption for anything else.

Malcolm says, “So are rats.” Lorelei shrugs, "Rats taste alright, if you cook it right..." She doesn't seem to realize, for a moment, that she's saying something that most people would probably freak out about, "It's not my favorite, but... Meh." She finishes off her burger and offers the bag back to Megan, "Megan, would you like the rest of my fries?" If not, she'll throw the bag away, along with the bottle of water after she finishes it off, "I should be getting home before it gets dark."

"Oh, yes please!" M'gann will happily take the bag of fries. "It was very nice to meet you, Lorelei! Maybe next time we meet, there will be puppies." She doesn't seem to think anything of eating rats, one way or the other. Afterall, she's not tried them yet so can't say. Then, she looks back to Malcolm, "You would probably have more friends if you didn't dig their graves and put other things in them," she tells him, trying to help. "And if you had a puppy."

Malcolm says, “Keep yourself safe, Lorelei. At least you find new arrangements for your eternal rest. I do hate to re-dig a hole." Malcolm grins to her.

He then looks to M'Gann, "Most of my friends are happy that they are not in their graves.”

"It was nice t' meet ya, Megan." Lore waves to the Martian-girl, and gives Malcolm a half-hearted wave, as well, "Uh... yeah. Thanks..." She heads off down the path, walking beside it so that she avoids getting bumped into, before disappearing into the trees. A few minutes later, a winged form rises above the trees a quarter of a mile or so away, and flies off in the direction of North Salem.