windandstorm | Musebox spam!!

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Kieron was so sure that he would receive weird stares for lying around in the complex's walking park wearing mostly black on a bright and sunny day, that when he realized that not very many people were out at all (and most of them weren't staring), he was actually mildly disappointed.

He turned a page in the book in his hands. Reading didn't usually go so well with thinking, and right now, he didn't want to do much thinking. Last night had not gone well. What should have been a simple in-and-out of a deal had quickly escalated to gunfire and fistfights, and before he could get his friends out of there, most of them had been injured. Someone he wasn't familiar with, but whose name he knew, had even been shot and killed. Who knew there was so much bad blood over a simple suitcase of money...

Growing tired of the idiotic antics of the protagonist, he decided to use his book as a shield for his eyes instead of actually reading the words. Eventually, his arm grew tired, so he resorted to placing the open book over his whole face. Hmm... maybe that would get him some weird looks.

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Down the way, a small ruckus was being stirred in the most-recently inhabited apartment. The sound of boxes being dropped and two adult voices raised in surprise, then admonishment: the mother, "Siggy!" and the father, "Sigmund! What were you thinking? I could have—!" and the child, much harder to hear thanks to his softer tone of voice, "I'm sorry!"

More was said, but the voices had lowered and became indistinguishable. Finally, a belligerent sigh, and a young boy around ten or eleven years old tromped his way out of the apartment. Around his neck were some headphones attached to the player in his hand, but he had yet to put them on. He seemed more exasperated than annoyed or upset.

After a moment of searching the surrounding area, past a few of the boxes that had yet to make their way inside...

"Hey."

The boy found Kieron.

The book moved a little at the sound of the distant argument - a result of Kieron shaking his head. It sounded like it was coming from the direction he'd seen the moving van earlier. Maybe his new neighbors were the fussy kind. Maybe things were about to get a little bit more interesting in this place.

Then, he was found by a boy. The book sort of moved again, and Kieron reached up to scratch the back of his head as he sat up, letting the book drop into his lap. He gave the kid standing before him a neutral look. After a bit of a pause, he managed, "Yo."

The boy smiled for him. It looked like the guy wasn't actually asleep after all. "What are you doing?" he asked, moving to sit next to him without invitation.

Kieron watched the kid, and confusion took over momentarily when the kid sat next to him. He couldn't keep from raising an eyebrow. Who was this boy, and why was he even here? Did Kieron have a sign on him somewhere that said "talk to me"? Because if he did, he would love to see it, and have it for later times when he went to the campus and actually tried to find people to talk to.

That wasn't to say he minded the kid being there. He actually, much to his own surprise, didn't mind it at all. It was just... really random.

He gave an exaggerated one-shoulder shrug. "Was reading. Got pretty mad at the good guy, though, so I had to stop. What are you doing?"

"Sounds boring if you can't like the good guy," he commented. Then, he groaned dramatically and tilted his head back to inspect the higher points of the buildings around them. "Nothing at all. I just got kicked out from helping unpack stuff."

That said, he turned his head so that he would be looking up at the guy, instead. "Wanna see something cool? You can't tell anyone, though. Okay?"

"Kicked out from helping unpack?" Kieron looked confused again. "Don't parents usually make their kids do most of the work while they claim to be too old, or something?"

"Something cool, huh?" He acted like he had to give it some serious thought, narrowing his eyes and tapping his chin with one finger as though he were examining the kid. Then, he grinned, and nodded once. "Sure. And don't worry, I've got no one to tell."

"They said I was just getting in the way," he replied offhandedly. At this point, he was utterly used to his parents wanting him out from underfoot. He didn't really take it personally so much as his parents had no idea how to care for a kid and wanted him to raise himself, only being there when it was time to show off.

He grinned at the acceptance. "Okay. But remember: you promised! Now, watch." He nodded to himself and spent one last moment combing the area over with his eyes. Then, he took a deep breath, reminding himself of the utter boredom and the want for something different, exciting and entertaining, and...

Light. It appeared merely a foot in front of him, soft and gentle. When it did, it seemed everything within five meters had been submerged under prismatic water; the light was reflected in unnatural ways and danced across the cement and the walls nearby. It fluttered across even the boy and the man, but was too soft to hurt their eyes were they to look into it.

"That's-" he almost said something he shouldn't, but quickly remembered that he was speaking to someone who wasn't even a teenager yet. "-not cool."

Kieron sat forward. He wasn't sure what it was he was supposed to be seeing, and if it turned out to just be an imagination game, he was going to have to very quickly remember how best to act thoroughly impressed--

Then, the light appeared. He knew exactly what that was, and he no longer had to worry about pretending to be impressed because his eyes narrowed and his jaw dropped a little. He watched the bending of the light, the prisms, the reflecting and the refracting... It was beautiful. Awesome. And he knew exactly what it was.

He gave the boy a grin. "Wow. So, how are you doing it?"

The boy shrugged in response when Kieron agreed on the suckiness of his parents' attitude. It was normal to him by now.

"I dunno," he replied, watching the light prism shine around the area, seeming more than content with his little show. He turned up to Kieron and gave a big shrug. "I just am. It's really cool, right?"

"Yeah, it is," Kieron answered, back watching the dancing lights and colors. "Did someone teach you how to do it?"

"Nope." He turned back to watch, as the show seemed to speed up, just a little. "I figured out how to do it aaaall on my own."

"Impressive! Wish I had that kind of talent." It wasn't exactly a lie. Kieron had to read the same damn book ten times to figure out how to do the basic stuff, and that was after the few times he'd read it thinking it was just a fiction book taking itself too seriously. Why couldn't he have had the easy road out, too?

He chuckled a little and shook his head, mostly at himself. "Yeah, that kind of puts my little trick to shame," he said with a shrug, reaching to fiddle with a dead twig that had probably fallen from a nearby tree.

The lights dimmed as his attention was clearly pulled elsewhere. The boy looked up at Kieron in keen interest. "You have a trick, too?" He leaned forward, eyes sparkling. "Can I see?"

"I have a couple of tricks, actually," Kieron answered casually, and he held up the twig where both he and the boy could see it. "Most of 'em aren't that visual, though."

He focused on the tip of the twig, and in a few seconds, it caught fire. No match, no lightning strike, nothing fancy. It simply lit itself as though it had been put too close to a candle. The fancy part came when Kieron concentrated just a little, and the fire shifted from red, to blue, to green, to purple, to black, then back to red.

"That's—" The boy reached out halfway to the fire, or maybe he was just reaching for the stick, but then it started to change colors. "Whoa! How are you doing that?" And then, the unspoken question: and can I do it too?

Kieron pulled the stick away just slightly. "Careful, man. The fire's real, even if it's not the right color sometimes."

At the question, he just smiled a little. His eyes never left the tip of the stick. "I just wanted it to happen enough, and it did." He began tilting the stick to the side as he talked, allowing the fire to spread along the side, still cycling through colors. "It used to be a lot harder, of course. But after enough practice, it got easier. It's probably kind of like your light trick, too, isn't it?"

And that, hopefully, would get him the answer he thought he was going to get.

"I wasn't going to touch it," he muttered petulantly, though he brought his arm back down to his side and settled for leaning closer instead.

He seemed entranced by the show and continued to watch while he replied to Kieron. "Yeah—! It was hard, but the first time I did it... it was really awesome, too! And—and, I kept trying to do it again and again, and eventually it just got really easy. You know?"

Kieron nodded. "Yeah, I know."

He put the fire out and set the stick back down on the ground before turning his full attention back to the boy. "Now, you can't tell anyone about my trick, either. Alright?"

He nodded earnestly. "Of course! I won't!" Then, gravely, "I promise."

"Good." Kieron managed to look properly serious for all of a few seconds, after which the grin came back.

"I'm Kieron, by the way," he said with a nod. "What's your name?

He grinned back, very enthusiastic now that he had met someone with a trick as cool as his own. "Li!"

"Li. Good to meet you." He nodded. "About time I found someone else who could do things like I could."

Sure, he knew one or two others out there, but they weren't exactly what he'd call... friends.

"Can you do other things?" he asked excitedly.

"Yep," he answered, grinning a little, "What about you?"

"Nope," Li said with obvious disappointment. "Just that. What kind of things can you do?" he asked, shifting back to excitement.

Unfortunately, most of his "tricks" were driven by the need to get out of a situation alive, or the intense desire to see someone burn. ... Sometimes literally. Even if either of those applied right now, he didn't exactly want to tap into those sort of feelings right now. He tried to think of some smaller ones, like wanting to drive away boredom...

And the wind blew a little bit harder. He held his hand up as if to catch something, and when he brought it back down, it felt like the source of the air was coming from his cupped hand. He grabbed some leaves with his other hand and went to drop them into his cupped hand, and the leaves began spiraling there as though he was holding onto a miniature tornado, which was close enough to the truth.

"Stuff like this, mostly. Just messing with stuff that's already there." He turned his grin to Li.

Li stared, once again in awe. "That's..." He reached out to try and grab at one of the leaves, or perhaps feel the swirling air for himself. Turning to look at Kieron, he asked, "How are you doing that? Just wanting it to happen, like with the fire?"

He nodded. "Pretty much. Not much else to it." Kieron shook his hand in front of him, dissipating the tornado. He added, "Kind of like your light thing. After you make it happen the first time, you just practice and it gets easier. You should try making it happen."

He grabbed at some of the leaves that fell once the wind supporting them vanished. "You mean what you just did? You think I could?"

"Why not?" He gave Li an encouraging half-smile. "Your color thing was way more of a big deal than just a little bit of wind." Underplaying. The biggest help to making it happen was to make sure he thought it could happen.

"Really? Hm..." Li mulled that over, then cupped both of his hands in front of himself. Eyes narrowed, he began to seriously concentrate... or, as much as an eleven year old can do anything seriously without looking like a complete dork.

Kieron watched his hands for a minute, too, then looked ahead of himself instead. He picked the stick back up and absently twirled it between his fingers. What finally did it for him? How could he get it to make sense to Li?

"Ever just wanted to push something over?" he asked, albeit a little on the quiet side, "Like, a light pole outside your window when you're trying to sleep?

Or, hey, more extreme. Someone's making fun of you, and you'll get in trouble if you go over and push him yourself, but who's going to make the wind stay after class? Just think, if you could actually get the wind to stay in your hand, you could make it go wherever you wanted."

If Li was paying attention? All the better. If not, it didn't matter.

"I 'unno," Li replied absently. He was still focused on the lines inside his palms, trying to conjure the wind. Kieron had made it look so easy... "Pushing's not really my style."

Keiron shrugged a shoulder. Pushing was definitely his style, and it was hard to think of what else someone might want the wind for... though he had the feeling it shouldn't be...

"You could just keep it for yourself, just to feel the breeze or something."

"That's what fans are for, isn't it?" After a moment, he huffed and brought his hands back down. "It's not working!"

Kieron gave a quiet laugh - he shouldn't have found it funny, but he did. "I think the thing is, you just want to do cool things. You're not specifically focusing on the fact that you want the wind. Am I wrong?"

"W-well..." Li began to mumble, flexing his hands a bit before continuing, "Maybe... not really..."

Bingo. Kieron shook his head, making fake-disappointed "tsk"ing noises. "You're going to have to be specific. Wild coincidences only happen maybe once in a lifetime."

"But I met you," he countered. "And you can do all this stuff, too!"

Kieron laughed. "Yeah, but do you know how long it took me to figure out it was happening on purpose?" He pointed at Li with the stick. "And that was just the wind thing. The rest, I had to work up to."

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