fandomhighdorms | Third floor common room, Saturday morning

It had actually taken Raven a little while to realize that something had gone terribly wrong this morning. A few minutes in which she had hidden in a stall in the bathroom, staring into a compact mirror and cursing as she tried to make herself look like anything other than her natural blue scaley self.

She'd then spent another half and hour in said bathroom stall attempting the calming and meditation techniques Charles had taught her in order to try to regain control over her ability.

It wasn't working. She'd completely lost her ability to shift.

This had led to rushing back to her room in a flurry, grabbing the only pair of jeans she owned, her formal gloves, and -- at a loss for a top that provided the proper coverage -- one of Chuck's hooded sweatshirts and pulled them all on before anyone could see her in her blue glory.

Now? Now, hood pulled up to shadow her face as much as possible, she was raiding the common room kitchen for food before looking for somewhere to hide. Maybe she'd try to find Dracula. He had some limited shapeshifting abilities, maybe he could advise her? He'd at least make sure no one tried to kill her, right?

She muttered a flurry of very unladylike words as she grabbed an entire loaf of bread and attempted to cram it into her purse.

She was going to need a bigger bag.

[ooc: Chuck's sweatshirt modded with permission. Post is quite open, yes indeed.]

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"As a ginger, I can definitely agree with that," Maddie conceded. "But I mean, isn't there another blue girl here? And she seems to be doing okay."

Maddie only ever saw her in passing at stuff but that didn't mean she couldn't use her as an example.

"Well, yeah," Raven said. "But she's an alien." Raven absolutely could not tell you why that made a difference, but she definitely thought it did. "I'm just . . . ugly."

Ah. There it was.

"Uh, you're totally not," Maddie said, like this was obvious.

"You haven't actually seen me," Raven pointed out. "Not really." She reached up, hesitated a moment, then pulled her hood down. "See? Not exactly everyone's dream look."

"So you're not typical," Maddie said with a shrug. "People cosplay for this look."

. . .

"I don't know what that means."

"Oh. It's like when people dress up to look a certain way, like as a character or whatever. They usually put a ton of time and work into it just to look that way for like, a day," she explained.

"Looking a certain way for a day isn't the same as looking that way all the time," Raven said. "This isn't just some costume I can take off. I can't change it anymore."

"No, I know. I just mean..." Maddie paused, and decided to take a different tack. "How about instead of running off, we hang out in here for a while? You can just be you. And if anyone starts anything with you... I'll... beat them up."

"You'd beat people up for me? You don't even really know me." They'd crossed paths a few times, sure, but they'd never really hung out or anything.

"I'm not a fan of bullies," Maddie stated. And she had questionable morals.

Raven had no room to judge anyone on morals. Not even pre-mutant terrorist Raven.

"That's . . . wow. I mean -- thanks." She wasn't sure she'd actually be able to do it, but it was definitely an interesting idea. "I . . . I guess we could try?"

"Okay, cool," Maddie smiled, opening the cupboard to get a bowl. "Hiding out gets boring after a while anyway."

And then her fingers sort of stuck to the cabinet door when she tried to close it.

"I was kind of hoping it'd be all better by morning," Raven admitted. ". . . What are you doing?"

"I don't know," she said, pulling her hand off the cabinet and realizing her other hand was sticking to the bowl. "That's weird."

"Did someone put glue on them?" Raven reached out hesitantly and pushed on the cabinet. If she stuck, she could just pull her hand out of her glove, after all.

She didn't stick.

"That's weird," she agreed.

"...I have to try something," Maddie said, toeing off her shoes because she wasn't sure this would work if she didn't. "Don't look at me funny."

"I'm blue and have scales. I don't have room to look at anyone funny."

Maddie (wisely, for once) didn't say anything to that, and just went over to the nearest open wall so that she could put her hands on it. Yep, they were sticking. Then she lifted one foot onto the wall, and when that stuck too she climbed halfway up and then looked back at Raven. "I can wallcrawl!"

Raven grinned up at her. "That's fantastic!"

Maddie pushed off the wall to land back on the floor, looking pretty happy about it. And of course she had to try to webshoot, making the 'thwip' gesture and everything... and okay that didn't work.

"Whatever, I can wallcrawl," she said, still smiling.

"I bet you could walk on the ceiling if you wanted to," Raven said. "You weren't able to do that, before?"

"Nope. Totally powerless," Maddie said, and corrected. "Well. Totally powerless for a few months now. But I couldn't do this before."

And while she wouldn't say it aloud, she'd soooo missed having powers. Eve if she was sort of disappointed she probably couldn't swing from buildings.

"Wait, what happened a few months ago? Was it like this?" Was Raven going to have to spend months powerless only to get something random later?

"Oh, no no no," Maddie said quickly. "I used to, uh. I had powers, but they were pretty much going to turn me into a walking ghost in like ten years, so when someone offered to cure me, I took it. Nothing to do with Fandom."