Robert
"N-no, it's okay! It's fine! I just... It just stings!" He said, doing his best to keep it together while the snake wriggled to and fro on his stump. "I don't... I'm used to it!"

Slowly, carefully he gets on his knees, holding his hand up, his face still wincing as he held his hand up, the snake still whirling about on the stump. "W... Watch, yeah? I'll be... I'll be fine!" He breathed. The pain of the bite wasn't what hurt, after all, it was what came next that always felt strange and discomforting. The snake's body began to shrink, as it slowly began to calm from its furious wiggles. Slowly, but surely, the animal was now turning into something else. The young man's missing finger.

Taking a deep breath, he sighed. "Sorry for troubling you there." He muttered. "My finger sort of got cut awhile back and turned into, well... The snake, and that's the faster way to get it back."
Charles
◆ "What do you mean you're used to it? That's a-" Letting out an exasperated groan, she threw her hands up lightly and stepped back, though the worry in her face still showed itself in her eyebrows and her frown-tugged lips. "I guess if you say you're fine..."

□ Now, she couldn't exactly grip how exactly being bitten by a wriggling snake was fine and dandy, at least at first she couldn't. It just seemed so alien, and if anything before his power started to show itself she begin to think he was a kook of some sort. Suddenly, though, her expression shifted from weird concern to mild amazement as the snake began to stiffen up and shrink, metamorphosed into a finger before her very eyes.

▪︎ Man, powers were weird sometimes.

◆ "Oh, okay... Jeez, that scared me. Sorry! Just... Who the heck expects to see someone willingly being bit by a snake?" Now that the initial shock and horror was gone, her face had flushed lightly with embarrassment, a hand to the back of her neck. "Anyways, uh... Is that your power, dude? Snakes?"
Robert
"If it were just snakes, that'd be a lot cooler." He sighed. If only it were just something innocent, like some animal. "By some cruel twist of fate, my power's baked into my last name... Even if my family isn't really, well... The one I grew up with aren't my real parents."

Still sitting on the grass, he smiled up at River and held his hand out, the one that had been recently healed, the snakes tail gave a final wriggle before the figure of his finger returned to that of a normal human digit. "Lerna. Edwin Lerna's my name, and my powers are all connected to the mythical creature my last name's famous for. Some call it a curse, some call it a blessing... All I know is that when your breath is always as bad as the Hydra's, you tend to go through toothbrushes quickly."

"You wanna tell me yours, or is it uhh... Sensitive to talk about? I'm still not sure if that's... If people are all okay with just sharing theirs here..."
Charles
◆ "Oh... Well, at least you know, right?"

□ Awkwardly navigating the outright adoption confession that had been directed her way, River kept herself upright, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her baggy cargo pants in response to a cool breeze that had whipped against her knuckles. That out of the way, she looked down at the lad, curious green eyes observing how Edwin's face moved as he talked, a weird little habit of hers that had got her bullied heavily before.

▪︎ Now wasn't the time, though.

◆ "Oh jeez, the hydra is real? Wait. I thought that was just mythological? Or something. My part- I mean, friend, back home." She awkwardly chuckled. She actually hadn't been dating anyone, but she also did *Not* Want to explain a queer platonic partner to a literal stranger. No go. "She was super heavy into mythology, and she said something about the Hydra being killed by, uh... Hercules? Yeah, that's the dude. I think. Anyways, is the Hydra real? Is it a pet? Can you tell it to roll over?"

• What a dork.