ic A to Z (Everything Changes, Except When it Doesn't)

[Gizmo]

Winifred hesitated for a moment before picking up her novel and standing with a stretch. "I'm led to believe ice cream has some cultural significance as a vehicle for female bonding over trauma, so that does seem appropriate, if you're offering." She gave Corinne a small smile which still seemed emphatic compared to her overall restrained demeanour. She looked over at the building containing the cafeteria contemplatively before adding, "I'm not typically one for gossip but it does occur to me to ask which boy it was who upset you. For reference's sake." Depending on the answer it might have been someone worth avoiding in the future or someone she might need to have a stern word with concerning their manners going forward.

[TheAbsurdist]

"Something like that?  I dunno, I never was that specific, really.  i like food and..."  Corinne's frown was sudden as she looked down at herself, and her lack of good clothes.  "Hm... One second..."  Her power surged forth as she gripped at her top, and then tore at it as the material stretched past it's ripping point, as she just changed it.  The rest of her clothes followed suit.  She touched her power, and she closed her eyes, as she just let herself settle on something a bit more staid than before, denim capris, sneakers, and a Baroness tee.  "There, better..."  Though, she kept her eyes closed for a few moments, and breathing to push down the urge to keep going.

 

She kicked up her bag, and moved towards the cafeteria.  "The Brohort.  Mostly Bombastic, the tall red head, sonic powers.  He is kind of a jerk, and I've been frazzled so it wasn't much to get under my skin.  The others aren't so bad, but there always a bit too much."  She was a bit more forgiving than others, because she was, like, copacetic, and she learned to accept it.

[Gizmo]

Corinne took a few steps before realizing that Winifred was still standing by the tree, mouth open and hands raised with the palms upward in a dumbfounded expression. The alchemist shook her head and hurried after the taller girl, speaking much more quickly than she had been previously. "You transmuted your entire outfit!" she exclaimed in a rush, using one hand for emphasis. "Not just materials! Those trousers are of a wholly different construction, you altered the design of your shirt! The level of precision, let alone the raw energy requirements!" She realized she was gaping and did her best to temper her obviously piqued scientific interest. "Lord in Heaven, small wonder you're famished. You make the Philosopher's stone look like a child's plaything. When you said you 'changed' things I never thought...!"

[TheAbsurdist]

Corinne winced a little bit, as she looked at her, "I... yeah.   Yeah, that.  I have done some tests, they say it is likely it does make me hungrier, or something.  But, I've been practicing and working out for... like four hours, or so?"

 

And now the comfort level shifted, and in the back of her mind Corinne found it a bit funny, for a moment where she was cognizant of it.  "Yeah, the clothing trick and this..."  said as she stepped up onto the air, like it was solid, though she still wobbled a little bit in the transition, but once her feet was planted on the air, she was comfortable, though in her mind it was a bit like a tight rope.  "Those are the cool parts."

She shrugged, an expansive gesture with her shoulders, "Something about my biological father?  I guess. They've been reluctant to push me too hard, because when I change, I can do more, but changed me is..." Corinne trailed off, as cursing had been shown to be an issue, "Is really a bloody ****?  Not that I can really soften it.  Hence why she... I, whatever, grew to like thirty feet tall to smack around... Well let's call him Bobert."

[Gizmo]

Winifred was either less generally interested in the 'air-walking' trick or else had noticed Corinne's wince, as with a small cough she reigned in her scientific curiosity to a more manageable level. "Ah. That was thoughtless of me, after you had expressed the emotionally taxing nature of your abilities. I beg your pardon." Though she would have liked to make a thorough investigation of the blonde's transmuted top  right then and there she reminded herself of her own frustration whenever her condition was referred to as a 'gift' or 'power'.

 

Pursing her lips she turned her focus to the other girl's social concerns to keep her mind occupied now that she'd built up a head of steam. "Mmh. The ginger one, I've encountered him a few times. Bit of an ass, frankly. Could do with a smack."

[TheAbsurdist]

She frowned a little bit, still, lips pressed tight, and severe.  Corinne looked back to her, as she kept moving on the air.  "Well... it's actually the same as the other stuff, it's why I did it."  Her mouth quirked a little bit, as she thinked.  Then she reached up and pressed her hands to the air about eye level with Fred, and she pulled herself up.

 

It was a slow, controlled movement, lifting and she slowly bringing her torso up, until she was standing on her hands before Fred, and she arched her body up, so that it was out of the way, and her legs were curled up.  "See?"  She grunted in effort, the air under her having taken the form of a translucent substance, slight foggy, but firm, if not very dense seeming.  Fred would immediately recognize it as some sort of silica or graphene aerogel.  With another grunt, she lowered herself to the ground and dropped.  As soon as she was done the stuff disappeared.

 

"It's not, like, too bad?  I can do, well simple stuff? I know that isn't accurate, but the more I do with it the more it gets to me?  Just changing clothes, or small things, and walking on air or whatever is fine.  But other things...  Yeah, Robert is pretty much a jerk.  I mean, I think he just doesn't think... But I was ragged, and he said a thing, and then I grabbed him." 

[Gizmo]

"He and his fellows seem to delight in being intentionally crass," Winifred scoffed with a dismissive wave, paying considerably more attention to Corinne's demonstration than any excuses for boorish behaviour. She'd always been rather cautious about altering the properties of air itself in her experiments - a little too easy to suffocate oneself or ignite an entire room - but the excitable girl's intuitive control seemed to account for that. The danger presented by those abilities being used in anger was quite evident, however.

 

She tapped a finger to the side of her head idly, considering what she'd observed in relation to what Corinne had explained of her own experience. "The precise alteration of your clothing should be fundamentally more taxing than the wholesale transmutation of the gasses under your hands in terms of expended energy but it is perhaps more easily conceived, more easily held in your mind as a concept." The speed of her words was beginning to pick up again and it seemed she was musing aloud as much as she was conversing with Corinne. "The stress you describe would then be psychosomatic in nature or rather a chemical change triggered by what you perceive to be 'larger' effects, based on scale and consequence. An outcropping of your natural fight or flight response in which you unconscious alter yourself rather than your surroundings. That would be not dissimilar from my own condition though I'm applying a tremendous amount of conjecture, obviously."

[TheAbsurdist]

Corinne nodded at her words, whatever she had done to the air was gone without a trace, "Yeah..."  She wiped her hands together, and then over her jeans, "That's being charitable."  She didn't hate them, per say, though they had this amazing ability to either forecast, or be around when she was agitated.  "Anyway."  She clearly was done dwelling, she didn't hate them, but she wasn't particularly fond of them, in most cases.

 

She walked alongside Winifred, towards the destination of ice cream.  Her stomach growled loudly at the thought.

 

"I guess?  They've had some issues in testing me.  Like, I didn't know I could grow.  I really don't know chemistry that much, I've only had one physical sciences course, and some biology.  Changing things is, well it's all taxing, but it isn't much effort, if that makes sense?"  She squinted her eyes a little as she looked at her, as she wasn't as familiar with the terms as Winifred was.

 

"Just when it takes over, or whatever, however you want to describe it, what I can do is more.  I can make things.  Or... unmake things."  She held up her hands before her, like she was holding the point she was trying to make, and could shake it into reality.  Then there was a pause, and her expressive eyebrows knitted together, before she looked back at Fred, a slight blush creeping across her features.  "I, I am not used to anyone showing any interest to this.  Everyone is so," she paused and sort of fumbled, and worried, over the right word choice, "...used to this.  Like, I am totally not a science nerd, but I get what you said, I didn't even really think about what I wanted to change about these clothes, just general thought and... whammo."