Nina in the coffee shop! (Open)

Nina had been enrolled in Foresta Academy about nine months ago and after being around for a month, she left to explore the world. Before too long though she found herself back here. This was a good place with some good friends...and Knell...Whatever Knell was. Nina was very glad to be back to the island and for her first stop, she went to a secluded coffee shop table and ordered a mocha and cookies with a scrap of paper. She sat, drinking her coffee and wondering who was at Foresta and who she was going to meet now that she had returned.

Winter was not Jax's favorite season. It never had been--it was cold, and wet, and dark, and all the worst things that seemed to happen to him happened in the winter. So he was not in a good mood as he made his way down the street of Port Albion, the hood of his jacket up and his head down. He'd only wanted to get out of the school for a while, maybe find something interesting to do, but now he was realizing he would have preferred not to have left his room at all. His adventure outside was not worth the trouble.



As he headed back to Foresta Academy, fully intending to retreat to his dorm and not leave again until absolutely necessary, he passed by the coffee shop and stopped, staring at the front doors. Coffee did sound nice in this weather. He could always conjure it, of course, but Jax's laziness was well-known among those who bothered to know him at all. He might as well let himself off the hook and have somebody else do it, and while stopping inside would extend the time it took to get back to the school it would also be a nice break from the dreary winter chill. So after a moment's hesitation he ducked inside the coffee shop, ordered, and turned to find a seat.

Nina turned her head to see a familiar face inside of the shop. He was hooded and looked windswept and cold but it could be none other than Jax, a student that she'd met briefly but had never gotten to know. She sipped her drink and munched her cookies only to find herself too comfortable to wander across the cafe to interact with him. She decided against a small bolt of electricity due to the the exertion and tried much too hard to think of a way to get her fellow student's attention.

Nina reached into her back and grabbed one of her pieces of plain paper, folded it up, and made a brilliant paper airplane which she released across the cafe at Jax to get his attention.

Jax had just started towards a table, coffee in hand, when a paper airplane soared towards him, catching him off guard. He watched its progress until it landed before carefully picking it up and looking towards who could no doubt be it's creator. He vaguely recognized her as someone he'd talked to once or twice some time ago. She was a sophomore, he thought, a little shy one, Natalie or Nicole or--Nina, that was it.

Unsure of what to do but join her, he slowly walked to her table, standing awkwardly rather than taking a seat. "Hey."

Nina was excited to see a familiar face from the academy enter but realized that may have been too harsh of a way to signal him. Nina gave an excited wave to her school compatriot as he approached the table. Nina attempted to pull out more paper before realizing that her hands were once again full of her food. She took a hasty bite of her cookie and a large gulp of mocha to clear her mouth and hands. Nina pulled up her satchel bag from underneath the table and preemptively prepared more paper and pen.

She gently pushed one of the other three chairs at her table out for her guest and gestured towards it with a shy smile. After doing so she looked expectantly at Jax and continued to eat to fufuill her high metabolism and drink her sweet coffee to stay warm.

After another second's hesitation Jax slowly sat. He didn't exactly have friends and wasn't sure why this girl wanted him to sit with her at all; it wasn't as if they had anything in common as far as he knew, other than both attending Foresta. He hadn't even talked to her in months--or even seen her, for that matter. His time at Foresta hadn't yielded much in the way of friends, period, and he was sure that wasn't hard to notice for other students, so perhaps she was just trying to be nice. He could handle that. Probably.

He took a sip of his coffee to cover the silence as he thought of something to say, finally coming up with the oh-so-brilliant, "So...what's up?"

Nina knew that she was acting more social than usual, but she was very excited to see a familiar face, even one whom she had very little contact with. Nina was confused even by her own extravertedness. This island had always made more amicable, one of the few things about her childhood that she appreciated was the island environment. Foresta was on a colder isle but still a very nice one. Something about it made her more friendly towards its inhabitants, especially her feloow students.

She watched Jax take a chair very uncomfortably. His "So...what's up?" seemed very awkward. Nina grabbed a scrap of paper on the table and scribbled down on it "Just got back, how have you been?" and pushed the sheet to him. She then continued drinking her now almost empty drink before grabbing back her paper suddenly and adding: "Would you like a coffee?"

"Um...I'm good, thanks," Jax told her after reading her added question, indicating the nearly-full coffee he had ordered only minutes before. He wasn't exactly sure where that had come from but hey, at least it was far from the oddest question he'd been asked since coming to this school. He could only assume it was a further effort to be friendly. "I've been good, I guess. Nothing big to report. Where'd you go?"

So she had left the school; that explained why he hadn't seen her around in some time. He hadn't even considered leaving Foresta, so hearing that she had came as a bit of a shcok to him--but, then again, it wasn't as if he had anywhere to go outside of it. He was effectively homeless. But if she did, good for her, he supposed.

Nina giggled at her own offering as she realized that Jax already had his own drink. Her own fast metabolism made her eat far more than most of her weight and age should, so she always carried a stash of snacks in her back. It was something of a habitual custom for her to unconsciously offer others her food in exchange for friendship. She greedily gulped the last of her mocha and waved at the front until she got the message  through that she wanted another.

She then went on to describe (In her own strange way) to Jax what she had been doing in the time since she had left Foresta. After several moments of faces and incoherently miming, she realized that the only person who understood what she was saying was her. She reached into her bag and grasped an old sheet of paper on which she had written her brief account of her travels in the last months. It was mostly dull travel and an attempt to find something about herself that had ultimately failed which led her back to this enigmatic island. She pushed this piece of paper to Jax's part of the table.

For a while Jax could do nothing but watch Nina, completely lost by her miming. With absolutely no idea whatsoever as to what she was trying to say, he opted for nodding at what he guessed were appropriate intervals, trying to keep a straight face. It was perhaps the most absurd response to a question he'd ever gotten, and though he understood she couldn't talk to answer it he still found it hilarious. When she finally stopped and passed him a written explanation he gave up on the effort and laughed, sliding it closer to read. "If you ever end up without paper you're screwed, you know that?" he asked her, his tone lighthearted.

Nina's eyes went wide.
No paper.
No.
Paper.
What would she ever do without paper?  Mah'lek was the only one who ever understood her without her notes.
Nina stared down at her blank page and her pen started shaking. What would she do. Even though she had a sheet presently in front of her, she stared at it as if she had no way to write anything down. If this sheet was gone what would she do? How would she communicate? How could she order more food?
Her face slowly cocked up and looked at Jax, this cause of this mental disaster. How could he have suggested such a thing??? Her mental breakdown was clear behind her eyes as she struggled with the internal chaos of the mere possibility of being without a sheet of paper.

Seeing the severity of her reaction to the comment, meant to be little more than a joke, Jax backpedaled in an effort to calm her down. "Hey, it's okay, it was just a joke. I mean, you have plenty of paper, you won't run out. And if you do there's always people around to get you more." He had no idea if this was even remotely helping but it was all he could think to do. He hadn't meant to send the poor girl into a downward mental spiral over paper, of all things. He couldn't imagine it was that big a deal, but he guessed if you were mute it would be. Jax was good with people generally speaking, yes, but he didn't know what to do about this odd complication.

What would she do? Jax's words bounced off of Nina as she tried to figure out a way to deal with this problem. She considered leaving the coffee shop and then thought that her paper would be ruined if she went out into the rain and snow. She had to protect her paper. She grabs her sheet on the table and hugs it. 

She tries calmly to put the paper down and starts to write. "Sorry, I just hadn't thought about that before."

The waitress brought her enough coffee that she picked up and started to drink out of but to her dismay was too hot to drink right away. She reached into her bag and grabbed a candy bar from the bag. She broke half of it off and started to eat it in an attempt to calm herself and offered the other half of the chocolate bar to Jax.

Without hesitation Jax took the chocolate--he was never one to turn down free chocolate, or free snacks in general. "Sorry I brought it up," he told her, taking a bite. "Didn't know it was a sensitive subject. You've never thought of it before? Haven't you ever not had any before?" It seemed like the kind of thing that was bound to happen soon or later and he'd figured probably had happened to her before. He couldn't count how many times he'd ended up without anything to write on. Of course, he didn't carefully keep a supply of paper with him like she probably did.

Seeing Jax's enthusiasm in the candy, Nina grasped her bag and set it on the table. She opened it and flipped it over and dumped a lot pile of salty snacks and sweet treats all over the coffee table. She raised her brow questioningly as if to ask if he wanted to have more.

She shoved the pile over closer to him and continued to scribble. "Never thought about it, I've had my paper for years,"

This existential crisis made her rethink her way to communicate but after some thought, Nina realized that she was making a much more serious issue out of the problem than it actually was. Not to mention that she was on a looooot of caffeine right now. But it was so cold outside and warm drink were so nice. She caught herself drinking more mocha as these thoughts ran through her head.