A Curious Confluence of Twins

[iamnotpolaris]

It was shortly after she had finished classes for the day that the constant low-key hum of her sister's mind in the back of Emily's head brightened. 'Hey Emily, (guess who's new/did you know we're getting new students today/there's something noteworthy about them/I am prodding you to guess even though we both know I'll tell you anyway)'
'Mm? (vague curiosity/not terribly interested in playing guessing games/I'm sure I'll be more interested when you tell me)' Emily returned
'(Picture: two faces, one male, one female/female face, name attached: Arya/male face, name attached: Ezra/twins/Ezra=telepath/Arya=flight(+danger sense)/juxtaposition: Arya in flight+Edie floating on bands of metal/juxtaposition: Ezra+Edie telepathing)
'...You were right. That is interesting,' Emily noted. '(Query: location/location 1 Edie/location 2 relevant not-us twins/location 1=location 2?)'
'We're (me/othertwins/all three of us) in the library (picture: open library window) I thought maybe you could give Arya the air tour?'
'Alright, I'll be right over,' Emily sent, changing course towards the library.

Comments

[whatamithinking]

When she gets there, Edie is standing beside the open window, accompanied by the expected extra set of twins. '(Sister(mine(twin))/name=Emily/magnetism/impression:Emily floating on bands of metal circling her limbs and torso/impression:Emily giggling over a project with a classmate/impression: Emily in joyful motion)' she projected to the other twins in introduction. Out loud, she says, "Emily, this is Ezra and Arya Greymalkin. Ezra, Arya, this is my sister Emily.

[abodyinmotion]

Arya giggles, glances at Ezra (no mental changes) and "jumps" in the air and stay there hovering.

"Hi, Emily!" Arya says grinning "want to give the tour while the eggheads play with grey matter?"

[superego_medico]

Ezra frowns and sends (mild irritation/not funny!)

"Nice to meet you, Emily." Ezra says extending a hand "I am Anthony Ezra Graymalkin, but call me Ezra. If you like to be followed by a flying teenage girl giggling like a maniac, please do take my sister on a tour."

Arya giggles some more, Ezra rolls his eyes.

[iamnotpolaris]

"I dunno, I can get the same effect all by myself." She twirls into the air. "But playing aerial tourguide is always fun. And when we're out of earshot I'll tell you everything my sister doesn't want me to about why we use the library window," she adds to Arya.

[whatamithinking]

Edie facepalms. "Emily, do you have to share my embarrassing childhood stories with every new student we meet?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"Don't worry, if you're not there to defend yourself I'll be fair." She darts out the window, gesturing to Arya to follow.

[abodyinmotion]

"ByeEdieNicetomeetyou!" Arya says before following Emily.

[superego_medico]

(keep yourself warm!Sarcasm)

"So...," Ezra says turning to Edie "every single person who can fly tends to giggle a lot? Arya just managed to keep herself under control while she isn't flying. She was getting so many weird looks lately."

[whatamithinking]

"Nnnoo, it is actually not that common." '(Warren+wings/Jean+tk/Mama(Magneto))' "We're just lucky I guess."

[superego_medico]

When Edie shares the information Ezra blinks a bit.

"I might ask this a thousand times until it finally sinks in," Ezra asks "but doing all this telepathy really isn't harmful?"

[whatamithinking]

"Um, no? Why would it be?" 'confusion'

[superego_medico]

"I am not used to it..." Ezra says "and I like to play it safe when it comes to minds."

[whatamithinking]

"Well, that's fair. ...And I suppose I should warn you, doing telepathy is never harmful to the telepath, but it is possible to hurt someone by accident by doing telepathy to them. I. Um."
'embarrassment'
"I am used to it. Extremely used to it. I have literally never existed as a person without being a telepath. The way my mother found out she was pregnant was when Emily and I manifested at negative five months old. And I would have killed her if Papa hadn't erected a barrier between her brain and mine."
beat
"It's really easy to not do when you're not directly connected to someone like that, though. There...are ways to break someone's mind without meaning to, but it's not going to happen during casual conversation. Don't try to power your way through shielding you don't have the finesse to pick your way around, for example. If you encounter resistance of any kind, back off, and you'll be fine."

[superego_medico]

"I meant harmful to the people we are doing telepathy at," Ezra says "if it was harmful to me I would simply stop doing it, or doing it when the person needed it."

He tilts his head when she tells about the pregnancy.

"Wow, that is... a interesting pregnancy story," Ezra says "I fully intent to not break my way through anyone's mind, in fact If the opposite is possible, I will be all over learning that."

[whatamithinking]

"Unfortunately, there haven't been telepaths working together long enough for specialization to have developed much. But Papa didn't even know other telepaths existed until he was thirty and he turned out fine. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you managed to invent the field of telepathic psychiatry."
"So...what's it like to not be a telepath and then start? Every other telepath I've met manifested young enough that that's not really a meaningful question to ask them."

[superego_medico]

"I wonder if we are ever going to get to the level of official telepathic psychiatry. It won't stop me from trying."
"I am not sure how to answer that question," Ezra says about not being a telepath "non-telepath is the default to me, and my power started really subtle. After checking my journals I must have manifested anywhere from seven months to three weeks before Arya did, but only after seeing her flying that it clicked. It was like noticing that you have eyes but kept them close..."

He trails off, clearly at lost for words.

"Before Arya," Ezra continues "I would get emotional impressions and sometimes stray words, but it always felt like it was my imagination or just deduction from observation."

[iamnotpolaris]

Once they're both outside and relatively far away from the window, Emily waves an arm. "Behold! I'm sure you've seen the building from outside on your way in, but it's even better from the air, don't you think?"

[abodyinmotion]

Arya spins gracefully to take all in.

"Yes!" Arya says brightly "everything is better from above. I was itching to fly over the campus since we got here! How big it is this place?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"I couldn't quote you a figure, but most of this area," she says, waving her hand at the landscape. "Papa's family's way rich, this huge building was a personal residence before Papa had an attack of sanity and turned it into a school."

[abodyinmotion]

Arya is awed by the area.

"Aaaand your papa is not secretly a lord or something?" Arya comments "I complement his sudden attack of sanity either way!"

[iamnotpolaris]

"My Papa is the headmaster, and one of the most powerful mutants on earth. I think whether or not he counts as nobility is kind of academic. ...I am only mostly kidding when I say that. Um. Yes. Of course, before he decided to found the school I think his plan was to ignore it and go teach at a university somewhere, so."
"I'm babbling. I wasn't intending to brag or anything, it's just--this is yours now too. You can fly wherever you want. You can do whatever you want. That's the whole point of this place."
And then Emily lapses into an embarrassed silence.

[abodyinmotion]

"Hey! Chill," Arya says hovering closer "This place is great! You totally should brag about it, I know I would. In fact, go ahead and brag about it by way of showing me around!"

Emily might notice that Arya is considerable more cheerful than the average new student.

[iamnotpolaris]

"Okay!" Emily grins, relieved. She flies over another ways, assuming Arya will follow. "That's the massive satellite dish. Being made of metal, it's probably more interesting to you than to me, but it does have a couple of interesting stories behind it. They used it when they were trying to figure out how to leverage Professor Cassidy's power into flight after a window didn't work. He was kind of hesitant to jump, so Mama pushed him, and no one has let her live it down since."

[abodyinmotion]

Arya does follows, she hovers with her back to the satellite dish, her hands in the back of her head like someone on a beach chair instead of flying, apparently her "danger sense" is pretty good at avoiding obstacles that she isn't looking at.

"So that is how you discover if a student flies or not?" Arya says "I just decided to ignore gravity one day and here I am. Hey, that story with Professor Cassidy's has anything to do with the one about the library window?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"Sort of! When Edie and I were seven I was having trouble floating, figured that being pushed helped Cassidy and might help me, and asked Edie to shove me out the window. When I'm not being fair because she's there to protest I usually just say she pushed me out the window. Aaand no, flight powers are rare enough that that would be a really truly terrible idea. Professor Cassidy's power isn't flight related at all, but they used technology to leverage it in that direction. And there was a time limitation there that thankfully hasn't been repeated."
"She also pushed Scott out the window when we were five, but he's well-nigh invulnerable and it was sooort of my idea anyway."