Regan Abbott (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
negative_feedback) wrote2019-01-16 11:22 am
negative_feedback) wrote2019-01-16 11:22 am
(no subject)
It's been three days since she arrived, and Regan has gotten a little bit used to the Home. She stays out of it as long as she can, all the same, so she doesn't have to worry about trying to interact with her Hearing roommates. It isn't that she thinks they're bad people. It's just . . . a lot. Another reminder that she's not like them. That she's Other.
So, she wakes up early and heads out, and she stays out all day, until just before curfew, and heads back in. She does that every day, now, and maybe it's a little cowardly, but she's also giving herself time to get used to the city proper, using the map Greta showed her and marking things of interest on it as she goes.
She's marked the cat cafe down, and that really cool tinker's shop.
She's set to start school next Monday. It would have been sooner, but she requested an extra week. Part of it is because she's nervous. She'll have an interpreter, but it's been so long since she's been in school. What if she's behind her peers?
She doesn't want to think about it. Instead, Regan heads towards the park, wearing her new winter boots that Greta helped her buy. She swings by an Ahab's and grabs herself a hot cocoa with espresso in it, and ends up adding extra sugar to sweeten it back up. The park is a nice place, and she gets to see all sorts of different things and people here.
Even if she's just killing time until curfew.
So, she wakes up early and heads out, and she stays out all day, until just before curfew, and heads back in. She does that every day, now, and maybe it's a little cowardly, but she's also giving herself time to get used to the city proper, using the map Greta showed her and marking things of interest on it as she goes.
She's marked the cat cafe down, and that really cool tinker's shop.
She's set to start school next Monday. It would have been sooner, but she requested an extra week. Part of it is because she's nervous. She'll have an interpreter, but it's been so long since she's been in school. What if she's behind her peers?
She doesn't want to think about it. Instead, Regan heads towards the park, wearing her new winter boots that Greta helped her buy. She swings by an Ahab's and grabs herself a hot cocoa with espresso in it, and ends up adding extra sugar to sweeten it back up. The park is a nice place, and she gets to see all sorts of different things and people here.
Even if she's just killing time until curfew.
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She notices the girl sitting alone. First, because she is alone, and a young-teenagery sort of age that tends to be found either in clusters, or if alone, doing something in particular. And secondly, because she's seen her peering in at the cats and wondered before if she was going to come in.
The girl's people-watching, and she lifts a hand in hello, waving. "Hey," she says by way of introduction, "You watch the cats at the cafe sometimes, don't you?" As Blue takes notice so does Copper, and she lifts her head in interest, wagging her tail and taking a few steps forward.
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My name is Regan. I'm deaf. She shows the girl, then turns the notebook around again and adds, I like your dog.
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"Do you sign?" she signs, letting the loop of the leash sit around her wrist so she can do the motion for "sign". She's not good enough at it not to mouth the words behind what she's saying, and her grammar could use some work, but she's not bad given her lack of reason to practice these days.
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"Yes!" Her enthusiasm is evident in how vigorously she raises and lowers her fist. This is so exciting! "When I realized I was going to be in a new place like this, I didn't think there would be anyone who could sign. You're, like, the second person I've met!" She tries to go slow, because she wants to make sure she's understood.
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There are a few words she doesn't catch, but as the first sentence winds down, she's already smiling, glad she can help. She can tell Regan's signing more slowly than she has to, and it makes her think maybe she should take some lessons.
"My friend's sister was deaf, so I learned," she signs by way of explanation. Then, with a little coy grin she adds, "And my cat is deaf, too, but she doesn't know ASL."
(Cat is one of her favorite signs, like whiskers.)
"I'm Blue," she signs, using finger-spelling, then signs the color too, just to make it clear that yes, it is a weird name and yes, Regan's reading it right. "This is Copper."
"I see you at the cat cafe sometimes. You should come in!"
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"I've been in once," she replies. "It was really nice! If I knew you were there and could sign, I would have started talking to you then. I'm Regan. 'Blue' is such a cool name. So is 'Copper,'" she adds, so the dog doesn't feel left out — whether or not it even knows its name fingerspelled.
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"I'm sorry I missed you!" Blue says, smiling and takes a seat with a little bit of a question. "Thank you. People don't always ..." She doesn't recall the sign for believe so she spells it out. "It's my real name."
"Are you new here?" She doesn't know everyone here by a long shot but she's gotten fairly good at recognizing when she's never seen a person before. The people like them who are out of place and time tend to congregate, a little.
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Maybe it seems ironic that a Deaf girl is talking about how noisy the city is, but she has a feeling that Blue will understand. Or, at least, she hopes she will.
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Blue nods, understanding that much even if she doesn't know exactly when or where Regan is from -- though she clearly has been told that people come from all sorts of different times. "Only a few days? I wanted to hide, so you're doing good," she smiles.
"Where are you from? I'm from Henrietta, Virginia," she spells out. "All trees and mountains. Much quieter and ... greener. Maybe that's why I always end up at the park."
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There. She's said it. Making it real like this is scary, because it's going to be so easy for Blue to decide that Regan is crazy and not worth her time, or else that whatever she's left behind at home will make its way here.
She really hopes that neither of those things is the case.
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Iowa conjures cornfields, but what Regan says next is more important. Blue definitely misses a few signs there, but end of world is unmissable and her eyes widen; she nods, grimly. “Shit,” she says out loud, though she doesn’t know the sign for it, and switching back into sign, says “That’s terrible.”
Feeling like she needs to contextualize her lack of surprise, she hesitantly adds, “I actually...I know a lot of people living here who come from the end of the world?” She almost laughs. “My ex-girlfriend and one of my friends both had zombies. Different kinds of zombies! This place is crazy.”
Or maybe less crazy, considering.
“In Virginia we had magic. But no end of the world.”
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It's still kind of hard for her to believe. She hasn't seen much of it yet, so it's easy to pretend she'd never learned it at all. But now she's faced with it again, and she tilts her head, unable to hide the uncertainty — very nearly the fear, even — at the remark.
"Real magic?" she asks, a bit hesitantly.
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"Good and bad. I had a friend there who could dream things into life. Make dream things real," she adds, because she's not sure how to explain what Ronan does. "But there were scary things, too."
"And my family are all psychic." She spells it out. "Except me. I don't know if that's magic, though. That's more like...seeing more."
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"You're the only one in your family that isn't psychic?" she asks. That sort of sucks. Kind of like being the only one in the family that can't hear.
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"Yeah," Blue says with a wry smile. "Fun, right? I..." She hesitates for a moment, because it's hard to explain her ability and she's always a little hesitant about revealing it. It's such an easy thing to see as useful, and Blue doesn't like being seen as an advantage, not a person. But Regan is a teenager, and doesn't -- as far as Blue can tell - have any powers that are likely to use hers. "I do have my own powers. But mostly what I do is make other people's powers stronger. I got dragged into the room when my mom was trying to see something a lot."
She does have other abilities, she knows, from what she's been told particularly by Gansey coming from her own future. But she doesn't know how to use them, here, and she's not sure what all they entail or if she even wants to risk finding out. Maybe something she should find out, someday.