Jane Interacts at Long Last [Dharma]

[Jane]

There'd been something going up down on the beach for a while now; Jane was aware that Pyro had been disappearing down to the litle structure for a while, coming back flushed and healthy-looking, which was a nice change. Gill had told her (sparing no soft terms, as per usual) that he'd gone completely mad for a night. She slept through everything, apparently.

There were extra people hanging around. She could tell. Though the Dead Man hadn't come back from Baltimore, there was a weird male presence floating around the halls, though most of the time it was just somewhere on the island, not necessarily in the compound. Jane had no clue why she knew it was there, but she did. Maybe it was a more masculine scent, the sound of differently-balanced footfalls a floor above her, the way the kitchen was laid out after someone non-Angie had used it, but she knew it as indelibly as she knew her own name.

So she decided, on a boring evening when she couldn't find anyone else to whom to speak - Angie and Aurora and Python, Gill had also told her, were gone off to New York to cart back even more new presences to confuse her - to go and figure out who New Presence actually was.

She'd been wandering around the complex for about twenty minutes trying to find it, but it wasn't in the building, at least nowhere she could figure. Sometimes, she hated working off her gut. It wasn't as if she could analyze footprints with an intuition. However, it did work much faster, and with much less effort, which was gratifying.

Jane found her way down onto the beach, picking at her wrists, which were starting to go slightly weird - it was almost like in season changes, but much faster; her skin was drying out and cracking, going itchy, and it made her want to scratch it, but under her scratching she was all red. She'd had to get out the long gloves to cover her red-streaked forearms and put on a tank top since it was so warm out. Green slices of shoulder peeked out between the end of the thick tank straps and the beginning of the gloves, but no more skin showed except her neck and her face.

At least plants liked warmth, she thought morosely. She certainly got a lot of it, insulated as she was.

After just a bit of wandering, she found the half-built structure, which was actually less structure and more a pile of what appeared to be bamboo poles or maybe just young trees, with strange notches cut into the side. A dark man was sawing at one still upright with a small blade. He exuded an aura of infinite patience that made Jane at the same time slightly nervous and very serene.

"Hey," she said quietly, not wanting to surprise him, since he was holding a blade, after all. Surprising Jane while she was holding a knife always either ended in her dropping it on something vital or jerking automatically into a psycho-killer pose. "Whatcha doing?"

[dharma]

Dharma stopped the gentle sawing motion of his wrist before lifting his head. He looked sidelong at her with the mildest of smiles. A certain welcome exuded from him, as if her presence neither pleased nor offended him.

"I have explained to Pyro that his Brotherhood will wither if kept in a steel box. He has asked me to build as I would have in my home country so that those who wish it have something organic and natural to live in."

Sitting up, he regarded her. For a moment he looked as if turned to a wax statue, so still were his eyes and his breathing. Then the breeze shifting his hair, and he nodded a little, as if agreeing with what he just said.

[Jane]

Male Presence wasn't telling her to go away, anyway. Jane regarded him with interest; he was tough to read. Most people either made weirded-out faces or ooh-cool faces at her skin and then either tried to escape the clutches of the crazy green girl or prove how hip they were by befriending one so obviously a mutant. It was kind of cool to have someone just turn around and look at you like a normal person. Felt like winter, except not cold, and no Leery Eye. Jane doubted whether this guy had ever leered in his life.

"I have explained to Pyro that his Brotherhood will wither if kept in a steel box. He has asked me to build as I would have in my home country so that those who wish it have something organic and natural to live in."

...or used a contraction.

"Oh," she said, feeling far, far out of her depth. "That's a good idea."

She was quiet for a few seconds, thinking.

"Really good idea, actually," she mused. Goodness knew her room had been completely stifling before she'd grown all over it. "I don't know if anyone would really choose the complex of their own free will, if there was an option. How big's it going to be?"

Did he ever move?

Yes, there he went.

"So, um," Jane said. "My name's Jane. I don't... really have a code. Thing. What's yours? Do you need any help with your - work?"

[dharma]

"Jane. You are the one Angie tells me grows plants along her walls." He nodded once. He went back to the slow sawing. The wood looked as dense as stone.

"I will build until there is no longer a use for rooms." He lifted the log in one hand, looking at his work. Blowing a bit of wood dust from the etch he had made, he smoothed it with his fingers.

"I prefer not to be named. But those in the mutant community have named me Dharma. If you wish to call me anything, I will most often answer to that."

[Jane]

"Jane. You are the one Angie tells me grows plants along her walls."

"Uh huh," Jane said. Apparently she wasn't the first to seek out the local buddha/beach guru. (At least he wasn't up a mountain. Jane climbed mountains for no one.)

She watched him saw for a few moments, wondering if she should soften the wood or whether that would defeat the purpose of the exercise.

"I will build until there is no longer a use for rooms."

"Big, then," Jane said, halfway to herself. She decided to soften the wood just slightly, enough so that the way would be a little easier but so he could still enjoy the Joy of the Work or whatever it was buddhists used as a replacement for whining.

"I prefer not to be named. But those in the mutant community have named me Dharma. If you wish to call me anything, I will most often answer to that."

"Dharma," Jane repeated, though she slaughtered the subtle injection of the H. When you learned how to speak off Kansasites and Bible radio, old vocal habits died hard. "Like karma with a D?"

She didn't see how he intended to get away without being named. Somehow, she felt even 'hey you' counted, since it separated him from the Great Thingamajig.

[dharma]

Dharma nodded a few times, gently laying the log over and pulling to him a fresh one. He started anew.

"Very much like Karma. Karma is like fate. Dharma is like destiny."

Looking up at her, he turned his dark eyes to the sunset for a moment.

"You are a woman of plants. When did you discover this in yourself?"

[Jane]

It was sort of hypnotic, watching him work. No variation, ever. Just grind grind grind grind grind grind until, probably, the world ended. Or at least their world.

"Very much like Karma. Karma is like fate. Dharma is like destiny."

Don't say it. Don't say it. He's going to go off on a philosophical tangent...

"Aren't destiny and fate the same?"

Ooh, you said it. Bad Jane.

Dharma glanced at the sunset and Jane followed his gaze, wondering what he was looking at, other than the bright colors. All they reminded her of at the moment was whatever was happening to her skin, which was itching like a mother, and a little bit of Jersey, which had always had bright chemical sunsets.

"You are a woman of plants. When did you discover this in yourself?"

Random question. Well, not really, all things considered. Everything just seemed random coming from Dharma, maybe. Random and bizarrely wise. Jane bet he could just wander around spouting nonsense and sound like poety.

"Well, when I was six, I turned green," she said. "Six and a half, really, 'cause it was spring, I guess... I don't know when I found out I could control plants."

It seemed like she'd always been able to do it, now she thought about it. She remembered turning green, certainly, scratching viciously at her skin with tiny soft child-nails and her parents had thought she'd just had a rash at first --

She put it out of her mind. The point was, she couldn't remember not having her power.

"I remember finding out that other people couldn't do it," she said. "I don't remember actually figuring msyelf out, ever. Guess I was too young. Didn't know I was a mutant until I was almost 16, though. What about you? When did you find out?"

He'd probably just boom I Have Always Known in an impressive voice. Or serenely smile and talk about time being a human concept. Jane had zero faith in that particular philosophy. One way or another, everything got old.

[dharma]

"Karma is your action and its consequences. A hand that flows through a river changes the course of the water." Saw, saw, saw.

"Dharma is the understanding that your hand is as much changed by the water. Interaction and harmony."

"My abilities... many years of study, meditation, understanding. The walls of ignorance collapsed. Some are born this way. Others must find their way there."

He glanced at her before going back to sawing. "You like it here? On the island?"

[Jane]

"Karma is your action and its consequences. A hand that flows through a river changes the course of the water. Dharma is the understanding that your hand is as much changed by the water. Interaction and harmony."

It took Jane a few seconds to realize he'd stopped that train of thought. The sawing was seriously, like, hypnotic. She wished she was less useless, but her hands still hurt from being burned and she'd agitated them even more with the itching - she grit her teeth as thinking about the itching made it itch even more - but the fact was, she was useless.

It was easier than thinking about karma and dharma, at least. Crazy Eastern philosophy. The Uberminsch was so much more straightforward.

Straightforwarder?

"My abilities... many years of study, meditation, understanding. The walls of ignorance collapsed. Some are born this way. Others must find their way there."

Jane's brow furrowed. "So you just... tried to be a mutant?" she asked. She hadn't been aware that could happen. "You actually wanted to be one?"

Of course, he didn't have her extreme physical mutation; he could fit in anywhere. No one would be troubled by Dharma's presence unless they just got wigged out by his Dharmaness. That kind of mutation must be nice.

"You like it here? On the island?"

Jane shrugged. "It's better than most other places," she said. "'Specially for someone like me. I mean, it's not like I can just float under the radar..." She gestured strange shapes in the air, referring obliquely to her coloring.

"It's a little lonely, though. It always seems like no one's ever around, and then when they are around it's all very We Are Readying Ourselves For The Cause, not like a home."

[dharma]

Dharma smiled. "Mutants are born with their abilities." He left it at that.

"I made trees, for the building." He gestured to the stacks of bright green logs that Pyro had spent the last two weeks slowly bringing down. "I hope you do not mind."

"Do you hear a spirit within the plants, or are they just a part of you."

[Jane]

"Mutants are born with their abilities."

Jane decided to give him a suspicious look and hope he was intimidated. She was, after all, and confused to boot, though it was more wilful than anything else. While a part of Jane knew perfectly well what he was talking about, her worldview was not quite ready for that particular tidbit.

"I made trees, for the building. I hope you do not mind."

"Oh - no, not at all," Jane said. She sat down on the sand, legs crossed Indian-style, figuring if he was going to run her off he'd have done so by now. "They're trees. It's kind of what they're for."

"Do you hear a spirit within the plants, or are they just a part of you."

Jane bit her lip - gently; her teeth were too hard for her skin - and thought about it a little. "Sort of both," she said. "They're not - they don't think, not like a person does. Most of them. Some do, of course, but it's still not quite the same. Sentience as opposed to sapience and so forth... but you could say they're a part of me as well."

She touched her neck with a gloved finger, the small round of her the bared flat plane above her wrests the only place other than her face that her skin was visible.

"I'm not... really a person," she said. "Well. I am. I was born one. But I don't - I don't know that I count any longer. I don't have blood, my skin's almost closer to a leaf than real skin. I don't know that I even have a heart. My chest doesn't ever beat any harder than the rest of me. In a way, the plants are a part of me simply because I'm pretty close to being one of them. But it isn't as though we're friends. The only thing I've ever heard a plant think is that it was hungry."

God, that was going to give her nightmares forever.

"You're not hurting the trees' feelings," she summarized with a smile, gesturing at his pile of logs. "I promise they really don't have any."

[dharma]

Dharma shook his head. "I wasn't concerned."

"How we define ourselves is our own choice. Whether you are a person or a plant or the sand along the beach... it does not really matter in the end, does it?"

He paused in what he was doing, taking a slow breath and looking at the sunset again. He didn't seem contemplating so much as relaxed and plainspoken. Apparently the kungfu guru gig was soul-deep.

"This is the principle on which my ability was built. That at our center, were are nothing so different from a tree or a stone, or even the wind. You can agree to that, but not understand it. You can understand it, but not know it."

Dharma nodded. "I know it. You have harmony with plants. Perhaps you understand better than some."

[Jane]

Oh. He was just... informing her that he'd hoped she didn't mind.

How weird. It felt like it should be rude, but since it was Dharma, it somehow wasn't.

"How we define ourselves is our own choice. Whether you are a person or a plant or the sand along the beach... it does not really matter in the end, does it?"

"Well, not really," Jane said. "In the end, I mean. But it matters in the middle. At least to the individual. Even if I'm all ashes to ashes in the end, I still have to eat dinner and get up tomorrow and be a productive life form, don't I?"

Well, she didn't have to, but it would be very depressing not to be. Probably. It wasn't like she could just fade into the air.

"You're still building your building-thing," she said, "won't it eventually rot? But it still matters now, doesn't it?"

Jane took a moment to feel very proud of herself for having made a connection.

Dharma took a moment to stare into the sunset. He must've had retinas of steel.

"This is the principle on which my ability was built. That at our center, were are nothing so different from a tree or a stone, or even the wind. You can agree to that, but not understand it. You can understand it, but not know it."

Well, it made sense. There was a spoon, but it didn't have to be one. Still, Jane didn't know that you could convince a spoon it had the option to be a fork, no matter how open-minded the spoon; but apparently that was just what Dharma did.

If it worked for him, whatever. Was it so different, even, from convincing a blade of grass into a tree?

"I know it. You have harmony with plants. Perhaps you understand better than some."

She again got the sense that she should've been offended, but it was just a The Sky Is Blue type of statement; how did you take offense to that? "Maybe I do," she said instead. "It's not hard to have harmony with things like them, though. They're not difficult to understand."

[dharma]

"In the middle, no, it doesn't matter. If you are a Jane getting up to wash your hands, you are no different than a bird rising to find an insect to eat or a tree lifting its sap through itself to heal an ax mark."

"The temple serves a purpose. We all serve a purpose. Having a purpose does not make us meaningful."

He smiled a bit, looking at her. "It makes us just like everything else."

[Jane]

"I meant specifically," Jane said. "It might not be different, but it's still important to people I directly affect. I mean, things change when you take a person away."

Emotional turmoil, physical hardship - it did matter. Maybe not in the end, but it mattered.

Silly wisdom of the East.

"I think a purpose maybe does make you meaningful," she said. "Just no more meaningful than anything else."

She was so talking in circles at this point.

"In any case," she said, pushing herself back up off the sand, "I am going to go unmeaningingfully have dinner, or perhaps make it, since Angie is unfortuantely in New York. You're welcome to come if you'd like."

She dusted some sand off her pants, then placed her hands on her hips, waiting for a response.

[Pyro]

Pyro had not exactly shirked his duties assisting Dharma that morning, but had, unusually for him slept late. His night had been a little disturbed; his sleepwalking curtailed by the fact that he'd actually locked his bedroom door and hidden the key doing its planned job of waking him up when he walked slap into it. This had left him tired and bad-tempered and he'd made the conscious choice to get some extra rest.

He'd headed to the office and clicked through the usual swathe of news sites; which had done very little for his mood. Then he'd taken the call from Dom - and that had brightened him considerably.

A new spring in his step, the young man had headed out to do some more work in the fresh air with his new recruit. He held a remarkable amount of respect for the other man and had come to look forward with great zeal to their sessions.

He was surprised, but quite pleased to see that Jane was out here talking to him.

"Hey," he said, coming into their range of sight. "You guys busy? I can come back..."

[dharma]

Dharma stood, grabbing the log Jane had softened and turning it to sand. It settled in amongst the sand around it.

"Jane was just leaving to make food." He nodded to her. "Thank you, but I won't be eating this evening."

Handing Pyro the thread saw, he watched Jane a bit longer. He'd rarely met anyone more... well, western than she. Unlike his travels in the United States, where the thoughts of earthly folk swept past him like breeze to a mountain, here he found himself almost affected by the brush off he so often received.

He didn't like that attachment. It unsettled him. But he liked her anyway, Jane and her beautiful coloring.

[Pyro]

Noticing the look Dharma shot at Jane, John took the thread saw and moved himself away from the pair of them so they could at least finish their conversation without him standing there gawping at them. Bobby had always been good at that in the early days when he'd first plucked up the courage to ask Kitty out.

Within a few short minutes he'd fallen into the easy rhythm of sawing and let the feeling of working with the wood wash over him, relaxing him, draining some of the tension out of his shoulders.

[Jane]

"Hey. You guys busy? I can come back..."

Jane turned at the waist to see their fearless leader, looking haler and heartier than he previously had. She smiled at him in welcome.

"Hey," she said by way of greeting. Then Dharma turned her log into sand. She was vaguely offended, though maybe it was not the Point after all to make the building easy to build. "Not really, it's cool."

"Jane was just leaving to make food. Thank you, but I won't be eating this evening."

"No prob," Jane said automatically, before considering that this was not a very wise thing to say to Mr. Wisdom of the East. She decided, consciously, not to care.

She did like Dharma, though. In spite of his...

...Eastness.

Jane had an extremely inappropriate image of him in urban wear, throwing gang symbols and shouting "eas' siiiiide!" before she schooled herself back into rational thought.

"Bye, John," she called over her shoulder as she headed back up to the complex. "Bye, Dharma."

[exit Jane]