[u]Cordelia Lynn Holmes[/u]

The moon? Eh. Lynn never ventured too far out the city, but she [i]did[/i] remember a full moon, a brilliant one, huge beyond belief, with more stars than anyone could ever dream of counting, no city lights or-

Lynn closed her eyes, face scrunching up in brutal concentration for a moment. Her shadow, splashed out against the wall behind her, twitched, then reached out, arms splitting from two dimensions into three, and placed its clawed hands gently on Lynn's temples for a moment. Lynn seemed to relax, shoulders sagging a bit and a look of idyllic content rolling across her features. Her chapped lips nudged at a smile, and after a second or two the shadow drew back, Lynn blinking out of the trance. She was, seemingly, entirely unaware that anything was wrong. 

What had they been talking about? The moon? Yeah, Lynn never paid much attention to the damned moon. Occasionally, and that was occasionally with a capital everything, you could see it from the outskirts of Chicago, but Lynn never went out of her way to do something as retarded as stargazing. But, hey, if this chick got off on moon energy, Lynn wasn't about to start knocking astronomy. No point in pissing off the one person there who liked her.

The shadow resumed its normal behavior, in perfect sync with its mistress-rarely, it would be a second slow in matching her movements, but for all intents in purposes, it was as docile and obedient as Alex's. "Yeah, waking up early to get baked. Sounds like you got paired with a real winner there. That's coming from me." Lynn fumbled in her pockets for a cigarette, pulling out of her pack. She had about half of it left. Eh. Lynn didn't need them, they were just nice to have. Really, she only did it because she felt like it. If you were to, say, imply that Lynn perhaps had a dependency upon the little deathsticks, she would perhaps make you dependent on ice packs and epsom salts for a few days. Lynn smoked, puffing out the vapor in an unnecessarily long sigh. "Hope you don't mind secondhand smoke," she said, figuring maybe Alex wasn't down with it or whatever. She adjusted her positioning, legs dangling over the ledge, and blew out towards the jungle instead of towards Mary Poppins. That was especially cool with Lynn because she didn't really like eye contact unless she was trying to shake somebody down. She could win a staring contest with Medusa, but she didn't really jive with looking at people in casual conversations. Actually, she didn't really jive with casual conversations. Or people. Lynn considered her possible social shortcomings about as frequently as she considered things like turning away from a life of crime and joining a convent. "If they make us do math or whatever, I say we just meet up here and go mess around in the jungle for a while. I saw one of the Rambo movies, there's gotta be some cool shit in there. Like maybe some lost Mayan temple or whatever. I mean a school like this, there's gotta be cool stuff somewhere. I heard there's a shipwreck, too." Lynn considered her rather unpleasant trip over and frowned. "Well, as long as the shipwreck's not moving, I'll be alright. Fuck the ocean."

Lynn glanced at Alex at her compliment. She must be a good fighter. Well...it was true. Sort of. Lynn never thought of herself like that, because Lynn tried to avoid fights. Not to say she avoided conflict-just that if she had to beat the shit out of someone, she wasn't about to give them a fighting chance. A good fighter. Was she? She'd won fights. Lynn was very rarely fighting against her own weight class, which meant her win/loss record was a little more skewed towards the loss side, but damn if she hadn't put up a fight. She could take a punch, and she could sure as hell give one. Cordelia Lynn had beaten more than a few people bigger than her, but...she glanced down at her scarred knuckles and rolled her wrists for a minute. Why the hell was she uncomfortable hearing that? Alex...Alex had shaken Lynn up a bit with that comment-I mean truly rattled her, not just made her question the viability of using the moon as a life source or having a tail. Lynn took another deep puff on the cigarette and shook herself out of her self-loathing. [i]Get your shit together Cordelia. As Morticia showed you yesterday, this place is just as full of assholes as Chicago was. You start having a little morality crisis you're going to get your ass handed to. Stop being a pussy and grow a pair.[/i] 

Lynn's self-pep talks were generally effective, and never G-rated.

Lynn, however, was quite good at one other thing-a skill that was vital to staying out of prison and staying alive-she was observant as all hell. Perhaps not empathetic, but observant. You watch people's faces, learn to spot when they've got serious stuff going on? The guy who's wife got stabbed in a mugging gone wrong's not going to notice his pockets feeling a little lighter for another mile or so. Alex had that look, as she talked about fighting, and Lynn realized she may have touched a nerve. Damn. Maybe Nightlight had a dark past. Lynn was one to respect people's boundaries, which was a rather uncharacteristic trait of hers-given that she was never close to that many people, however, she was usually content to let you keep your business to yourself. Most people's bullshit didn't really interest her, anyways. "Huh. Well, world doesn't give you much choice sometimes. And it's more fun to kick somebody's ass without powers, anyways?"

It didn't sound convincing, even to Lynn. Alex was...something about Alex was both magnetic and disconcerting. She couldn't figure out what the hell it was. Part of her felt like she needed to watch out for her-that Nightlight was going to get chewed alive by the lizardmen and Morticias. She didn't look all that tough. Looks, they could be deceiving, as Lynn used to be proof of (these days, her look was pretty spot-on). But a part of Lynn almost felt like Alex was going to be watching out for her. Not even in a physical sense-Lynn had one hell of a bodyguard on duty already. Lynn didn't often consider her spirituality, or really reflect on her deeds. Thoughts like that made people soft and pillows hard. Lynn took another calming puff of her cigarette. God, what was getting into her? She needed to hit the punching bag. Or go for a run. Something. 

Then Alex's hair started floating and she really lit up, which immediately made Lynn wonder what the hell Alex did during sex. I mean, damn. [i]I bet it's like a rave.[/i] She also vaguely realized that Alex was probably deadlier than Pokemon when it came to epilepetic people. "Glad you're down with that. But let's stick with partners. Sidekicks are gay. Partners are cool. If you piss off that slutty goth looking chick again, now I have an excuse to smack the emo out of her." Lynn figured this was a pretty safe investment, in Machiavellian terms. Alex was too happy-go-lucky to go looking for fights-but, then again, she had to have gotten that little scar of hers somewhere. Lynn felt a twinge of guilt at the deal-it was favored pretty heavily towards Cordelia, who was far more likely to get into a scuffle than Alex-but whatever. While she would never admit it, the Academy was going to be damned lonely without someone (a second someone, if you wanted to be specific) watching her back, and Alex didn't annoy her. She hadn't ever had steady, solid relationships with people, but there was a sense of familiarity with people back home. A sense of being both at home, and alienated, all at once. There was a little of that with Nightlight, but it was more of the former. Good deal more. 

"Yeah, partners," Lynn said, trying to fill the silence. "Should be good. So, uh, where you from and all?"