The Crocodile And The Octopus (Myra)

[Jamal Duclair]

Beef stew seemed like a good choice for lunch and it gave Jamal a reason to spend more time in the kitchen. Stocks always took time to make and he always liked to start with one made of mixed vegetables then add the meat later. He already had the beef on the counter and while the stock was simmering he started rubbing spices on the meat. Really he was cooking for anyone who wanted to eat some real food instead of the stuff they served in the buffet line. What he really wanted was to be able to cook like this for a living, it would be simple, honest work and he could use it to fund his big plan. Build a gym, a place to teach kids how to get out aggression and responsibility. A way to keep them off the street.

[Myra Bennett]

Oh, how she hated it here. The noise, the people, the fact that she could barely find one place that wasn't always filled with people. At first she thought she might learn how to be the Myra that she wanted to be. Not the Myra she was. The Myra she was wasn't a good friend, wasn't outgoing, was scared of her own shadow and could barely talk to people with her stutter and nervousness, let alone without it. But as soon as she set foot on the island her hopes were killed. Violently. She hadn't stopped shaking since her first day, only three days ago. Even now there was a tremor to her, body held tense and tight like she was ready to run at any moment, as fast as her legs could take her.

She had finally worked up the courage, at least she thought she had, to venture into what was perhaps one of the places that terrified her most, with its noise and lack of hiding spots and how it usually held hundreds of students at any time; the cafeteria. She stuck close to the walls, breathing short and fast like a frightened rabbit, trying to keep a hold on her chromatophores. That was another thing out of many that she hated about herself, how she could barely control her powers at the best of times or just not at all. If she couldn't keep herself calm enough then her chromatophores, the cells that allowed octopi to change colors and textures, would start to malfunction, changing her skin color and texture rapidly like demonic strobe lights, drawing all eyes to her. She felt her heart jump higher in her throat at that thought but she didn't make a sound, forcing herself to keep quiet. It was then that she saw a door that led out of the horrifying room, and she quickened her already flighty pace, just wanting to get away.

She gulped audibly, clutching a wrinkled map of Ashford in her shaking hands as the door shut behind her. She was looking for the culinary room, the whole reason she was in here in the first place. The only problem? Even with the map she was hopelessly and utterly lost.

[Jamal Duclair]

Jamal didn't notice the new girl in his kitchen, yes he referred to it as his kitchen. He was to busy humming to himself as he cut up the vegetables and added spices to the stock. He was very particular about what went into his soup and what didn't, so whenever he was making one he had tunnel vision set right on the pot. Eventually when he was satisfied her turned around and looked at the girl, she seemed a little worked up so he decided to be as calm as possible."Hey you lost little junebug?" He bent down a little so she wouldn't have to crane her neck to look at him.

[Myra Bennett]

She wasn't expecting anyone to actually talk to her! She was so small she could usually go unnoticed, having learned how to blend into the walls and into the backgrounds when her chromatophores weren't flaring up. Though even when that happened people tended to leave her alone, not wanting to deal with the shaking, terrified freak. She often wished she could just blend into the walls completely, melt into them until she didn't exist. It would make things so much easier if she could just do that one little thing! It wasn’t like it was painful or anything for her to change her color and texture it was just...so hard. She had to concentrate so hard to mimic anything convincingly enough to really camouflage herself. It wasn’t like she could just snap her fingers and all of a sudden bam! Instant Houdini style disappearing act. What she wouldn’t give to be able to do that...to be able to even have some tiny bit of control...she’d give her right arm, that’s what she’d do. She was ambidextrous anyway, it wasn’t like she really needed one arm or hand more than the other.

So when the large, large man..student...person...suddenly talked to her she yelped, loudly, and jumped quite nearly out of her own shoes, heart stopping and starting again before racing off to somewhere. Her chromatophores suddenly woke up, turning her skin random, continuous bursts color and going from smooth to sandpaper to bumpy to back again. She pressed herself back against the wall, visibly shaking as her blue eyes shot wide with fear and surprise. She was nearly hyperventilating now, all the tension that had wound up in her suddenly snapping like a bear trap. She tried to rationalize, she always did, but she could never do it. She couldn’t put a complete thought together when she was like this, let alone an actual thread of logic.

She couldn’t stop the whimper that came from her as she stared up at him, small wet spots starting to show through her uniform blazer as her venom started being secreted, triggered by the surge of adrenalin that came with the fight or flight response. She pressed herself harder against the wall like she was trying to disappear into it, wanting to be as far away from him as possible. Except this time, it wasn’t all just because she was scared. Of him at least.

Her own venom, her only way to protect herself besides hiding, terrified her just as much as people sometimes. As far as she knew, it couldn’t kill a human unless they ingested a lot or it got directly into their bloodstream. But it still didn’t change the fact that when she was a little girl she had accidentally killed what was her best friend at the time: the dog she had grown up with up until that point. She had fallen and skinned her knee in her panic to get away from whatever had scared her this time and her dog had sat next to her, letting her hang on him, and licked her tears from her cheek as he always did. She didn’t know she had powers then, didn’t even know what venom really was, but within 10 minutes her faithful companion was dead at her feet.

She was still paranoid about it. It was one of the reasons she preferred long sleeves; there was a lower risk of direct contact. She slid down the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible. To protect him and to protect herself. She couldn’t let herself be around people, for both her sake and theirs.

[Jamal Duclair]

Jamal didn't expect that at all to happen, sure he was big but was he scary? He didn't think so unless he tried to be. He decided to keep his distance, noticing the odd stains in her clothes he went searching in the cupboards for something. He ended up pulling out a large apron and held it out to her."Here little one. Don't be afraid, I just wanna help, why don't you use this to keep dry off?" He kept a safe distance from her so she wouldn't yelp again. He wondered what was wrong with her that she'd be so afraid of him. Maybe it was just the way she was and if that was so he wanted to try and help her around the school."Listen I wouldn't hurt a little thing like you, I'm a friend okay? Would you like that?" He crouched to one knee and kept offering the apron.

[Myra Bennett]

Help? He was going to help her? No one had ever offered to actually help her before. Not her parents, certainly not anyone else. There were very people in the world that would help some random little white-haired girl simply out of the kindness of their hearts. And if she managed to find one she ended up driving them away with all her senseless fear and shaking and her costume changes. She honestly couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been so scared of everything that walked the earth. She just...was. And probably always would be....

She watched him warily as he searched through the cupboards, not knowing what he could possibly be looking for. Her mind of course jumped to conclusions, spiraling her into anxiousness once again, the familiar feeling enveloping her. It was a kitchen, there were all kinds of things in here. But what could he be searching for in the cupboards? Knives were in the blocks on the counters or in the drawers. Only things like bowls and plates and those kind of things were in cupboards, right? But those could be dangerous too and she didn’t know what he was going to do yet.

….And then he pulled out the apron. The apron that pretty much dwarfed her. She blinked at him with wide eyes, trying to understand what he was doing. He was really helping her. Really, actually helping her. He couldn’t have known that the stains on her clothes were from venom, but he didn’t ask any questions, not even one. H-he’s diff-different… She looked at the apron in his hands then back to his face and back again, trying to calm herself down just a little bit while still trying to puzzle everything out through her initial panic. He called her little one. Well that was different. 

When he crouched she started to feel marginally better, him being more on her level, though her curiosity about him only grew. She sniffed a little, nibbling on her lower lip while she decided what to do, chromatophores still firing. After a minute or two she tentatively reached a small hand out for the apron, not liking the feel of her own venom on her. She reached out slowly but almost snapped it back to her, like she was afraid he would to try to do something.

She wanted to believe him, really she did, but she just...she couldn’t. It was almost a physical impossibility for her to do so. She had never really trusted in her life. Not even to her parents since they always pushed her away and downplayed her obvious issues.

“....A-a…..fr-friend…?” Her voice small and meek, matching her shaking and wide, confused eyes.

[Jamal Duclair]

Jamal drew his hand away after she took the apron and rested it on his knee."Yes a friend." He said stepping back a few inches. He thought she'd want some more room now that he had given her the apron. He stood up and went back to cooking, the stock could simmer for while, now he had to season the beef. Every now and then he'd look over at her and smile. She really was scared of him but he didn't mind, she was little and he was big it's how it usually worked. Finally Jamal spoke up again."Want to help? Or just want some when it's done?" He didn't mind if she wanted any or not or if she helped at all he was just trying to make conversation and get her to calm down."It's beef stew if you were wondering."

[Myra Bennett]

Once she took the apron he dropped his hand and backed up, thankfully going back to whatever was in the pot. She quickly patted herself down with the apron, searching for any stray drops. When she was satisfied that there weren't any she tied the apron around herself with shaking hands, glancing up at him every few seconds. He didn't seem angry with her for being so scared, unlike others she had met before. The ones she had met before had gotten frustrated with her for her shaking and gear and when she tried to explain through stuttering what the problem was, they had just raised their voices --a thing you never wanted to do with Myra. Yelling was one of the things that scared her most --excluding the dark, ghost stories, horror movies, etc--; anger and loud noises. Anger meant that someone might try to swing at her and loud noises were just never good in her experience. But once again the giant in front of her was so much different than the people she was used to dealing with. He smiled at her! More than once! She didn't fully know how to process that. But whatever part of her brain that governed her chromatophores must have decided it liked that because they started calming down, returning her skin to its normal, pale color.

That...didn't happen often. At least, usually not this quickly. But before she could puzzle out the reason he spoke up again, the suddenness causing a squeak to escape her mouth, cheeks beginning to glow a faint green when she heard herself. She ignored the glow as best she could, nodding quickly to what he said before she realized he probably didn't know to which part she was nodding to. "I-I want t-to...hel-help.." She stood up slowly, cautiously walking over to him. He-he’s really...t-tall… She didn’t think she had ever seen a person so tall, let alone been this close to one without running away on sight. For some reason she wasn’t scared of him...well as scared of him as she should be. Normally she would have never accepted the apron or even spoke to a person who had just all but scared the living daylights out of her. She would have already been long gone, out the door and back to her dorm, by now. So what about him made her stay? It could be his differentness that was making her stay and feel a bit braver than normal, her curiosity about him making her stay. Or maybe it could just be the fact that he was cooking and cooking was one of the few things she could do well.

“Wh-what first?” She knew the basics of beef stew -who didn’t?- but she still had to ask since he might do something different than she would do or add in different spices. She didn’t want to just start doing what she would normally do and then end up messing up the whole dish because she did something drastically different.

[Jamal Duclair]

Jamal was glad she finally spoke up again, she seemed to be getting less scared of him. "Well you can strip the meat off the bones and them give them to me so I can use them in the soup." He always liked putting the bones in because it added some thickness to the stew and added a deeper flavor to it. Sometimes he'd just suck the marrow out of the bone itself. He started to turn the heat up on the stove so the soup would cook a bit faster. "My names Jamal, I'm gonna need to know yours too if we're gonna be cooking together, okay?" Jamal made sure that he didn't seem like he was pushing her, if she told him, she told him there wasn't much he could do without the risk of her getting scared. She needed a knife but he could just imagine her reaction if he were to grab one. "Knives are over there if you want to go get one."

[Myra Bennett]

Right, that made sense. Bones were commonly used to flavor stocks and soups and sauces and what have you. When she cooked she used soup bones too. They added depth to the flavor; especially if she reduced the marrow down to add in later. Who knows, maybe her and the giant, for all their differences, were actually quite similar. She noticed him turning up the burners with a slight frown, just a little downwards pull of her lips that lasted only a second. When she used soup bones she liked to let them cook and stew and simmer until all the flavor that could possibly be within them drained into whatever she was cooking. In her mind, such complete flavors needed to be blended in slowly, taking hours at times for her to be sure there was nothing left in the things. He would still be getting flavor by cooking fast and not letting them soak for so long...just not as much as she could with hours. She nearly squeaked. What was she doing?! She had just met the man and here she was criticizing a soup that wasn't even done yet! Her cheeks burned and started to glow faintly but she tried to ignore it the best she could before her chromatophores began to act up. Thankfully though when he spoke again his voice distracted her.

Jamal. It was a nice name. It suited him. Stealing a quick glance at him as she made her way over to the meat, she decided that she liked his name and that any other would just seem wrong on him. Though it wasn't an uncommon thing, people fitting their names and names fitting people, sometimes the two just didn't go with each other and it made her confused to think of someone as having one name when another was clearly better for them. But thankfully now was not one of those times. She had the weirdest feeling that she didn't want to be confused by him. "I-I'm...Myr-ra..." It was a good thing her name was only four letters long or else it would be a problem. She could barely get through her own name without stuttering! "It's...ni-nice to meet you...J-Jamal..." There. She said his name. She liked the sound of it too, if she was being honest.

When he mentioned knives she nodded, going to get one where he said. As timid as she was, she wasn't afraid of knives. At least, afraid of knives that she held. Other knives here a different story. At least when she was the one holding the knife she knew here the sharp, pointy bit was going. When others held knives it was anyone's guess, really. She grasped the handle firmly but not too firmly and kept her fingers away from the edge. Though she held it with a practiced ease that didn't mean that she couldn't still cut herself on accident. Which, knowing her, would probably happen. The last thing she wanted to do was bleed all over his food.

She set to cutting the meat away from the bones, trying to be quick and precise so she wouldn't like like even more of an idiot in front of him. She tried to keep the meat in one piece as she cut it away, in case he wanted to use some of it later and didn't want it chopped up. It was also easier to store this way than in a mound of messy scraps.

Once finished she carefully picked up the bones as if they were more fragile than they actually were and made her way over to him slowly. "H-here they are..." She didn't know whether he wanted to do more with than or if she should just drop them in the soup so she waited.

[Jamal Duclair]

Jamal smiled over his shoulder. "A pleasure to meet you Myra, I'm happy ta' have a helping hand in the kitchen for once." When she gave him the bones he added some spices into the marrow so that when they were boiling the spices would spread into the stew pot and add their own flavor to it. It was something his grandma had taught him back when he arrived. He remember even at age four he was just about as tall as the old woman and could see into her old pot that had seen so much use the inside was worn smooth from the spoon scraping against it, even then the woman was a mean old cuss to the kids that hung out on her steps acting all "hood". She may have looked frail but that cane of hers packed a punch. Jamal had taken to cooking like a fish to water, soon his he was the one cooking every night while his grandmother sat back and relaxed, not because she made him but because he wanted to. When he was done spicing them all up he dropped them into the pot to stew for a bit. "We can keep the meat there until the bones are done stewing. So we have a few minutes to spend."

[Myra Bennett]

Myra had taken to cooking too, but because she had grown up with it or anything heartwarming like that. It was the one thing in her life that she could control. In the kitchen she had to worry about spice measurements and cooking times; not things like her chromatophores acting up or if she started to drip poison or if she started glowing like some demented firefly. It was almost calming, having control over something for once. And she got good food out of it too so it really was a win-win. She was watching the pot when he looked over his shoulder at her, so she didn’t notice at first until she felt him looking. Her eyes snapped up to his and she jumped a little, not expecting him to keep looking at her. What was with that anyways?! Her chromatophores flickered, shades of green this time, and she wondered if that was why he was looking so much. Had her chromatophores started acting all on their own now? Acting up when there was no rhyme or reason to or were they still flickering from her initial nerves from being looked at suddenly? She shook her head a little, trying to force them down as best she could under the circumstances.

It didn’t surprise her all that much when he said that he didn’t get a lot of help. It was understandable; most would probably be afraid to disturb him or accidentally get on his bad side for messing up because he was such a giant. She couldn’t help but wonder what his powers were. Did they have anything to do with his size or was that just genetics going haywire? She tried to come up with a few guesses but all she did was come up with blanks; the powers she thought of not fitting him in the slightest.

She nodded a bit shyly when he noted the fact that they now had a few minutes of downtime. He didn’t expect her to carry the conversation, did he? She could barely get out a sentence, surely he noticed that. It would be just cruel to try and pry multiple sentences from her when she was clearly unused to it. She scolded herself internally; she was making assumptions again! Jamal didn’t seem the type to make her do anything she didn’t want to do, such as speak more than a few words at a time and he seemed perfectly nice. He had done nothing to make her think any different and so she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t get worried about having to talk or tell him about herself. But still.

“S-so...what n-now…?” That was a good way to ask and it would leave the conversation open to whatever he wanted to talk about, which hopefully wasn’t her. Or he could just not ask about her at all and do all the talking for her. Though at this point, she didn’t know which was worse or which she wanted more.

[Jamal Duclair]

Jamal wondered what he could do to pass the time "Well Myra I guess we cou-" Before he could finish a large bubble in the pot burst and sprayed some of the boiling liquid onto his arm. He let out a sharp cry of pain and couldn't stop his body from transforming. His nose crinkled up and his teeth elongated, his eyes went from brown to bright yellow and his pupils grew into long reptilian slits. His dark skin turned a deep green and separated into thick scales, he turned to look at Myra, worried how she'd respond to his new form. "Now it's just me Myra no need to be scared." His voice was noticeably more gruff than before and his hands had thick inch long claws replacing the nails

[Myra Bennett]

Don't worry? Don't worry?! He just morphed into a giant...alligator...thing! Why wouldn't she worry?! If anything this was the perfect time to worry! She let out a short scream before she could stop herself and scrambled back, hitting a counter and sliding down it as if to make herself even smaller than she already was. Her chromatophores had already activated, firing off randomly and turning her skin into a moving, colorful thing. They tried to disguise herself into the counter base but the most they could do was just turn patches of her skin the same shade of brown as the wood for only a few seconds at most.

She stared up t him, wide eyed, and admittedly terrified. One moment she was talking to a normal boy and just beginning to get comfortable with him -- well with being around him. The talking part was debatable. She was iffy on the talking still but she was getting -somewhat- better. The next moment a...a thing was looking at her. A thing with big teeth. A thing that could snap her like a twig whenever it wanted.

But, even with her frazzled mind, she somehow managed the focus on his voice. It was different, sure; more beast-like. But it still sounded like Jamal. She was shaking, but she tried to blink a few times like she was trying to clear her vision. "Ja-Jam-mal...?" Her voice sounded uncertain, even to her, but at least she was talking. That was something, right? That had to be something. If something like this happened to her she should be near catatonic or shaking so bad she couldn't talk.

But she could.

She was stuttering, of course, but she was talking. And she could think clearly!  Well. Clearly enough, given how much fear, shock, and adrenaline was flooding her system. How? Why? Why him? What was so special about Jamal Duclair that he could morph into an alligator monster and not give her a heart attack? That didn't make sense to her. At all. Alligator monster equals heart attack. That was the logical thing to do. Cause and effect, right?

There wasn't anything logical or rational about this situation, though.

[Jamal Duclair]

Jamal instantly ran over to Myra and stopped a few inches from her, he realized he must have scared her but he had to calm her down somehow. "It's me Myra, I may look different but that's all. It's still your friend Jamal." He felt sad that she was so scared of him, not because he was offended but because he felt it was his fault, if he had been more careful none of that would have ever happened. Jamal slowly took one of her hands in his and slowly turned back to normal, rubbing her hand to show it. "See? I'm all back to normal. You don't have to worry, no one's hurting my little junebug." To put emphasis on his words he slowly started to hug her, making sure it wasn't too tight that it would make things worse. "You're all safe with me."