10539/Christmas in Hell (Adjace)

Christmas in Hell (Adjace)
Date of Scene:	25 December 2019
Location:	Limbo, Earth-1813
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Magik, Cypher

---

Magik has posed:
It's the most wonderful time of the year,
With the junk that they're selling,
And the demons telling you to drink another beer,
It's the most dangerous time of the year.

It's the shadowiest season of all,
With those soul-searing heights in starless black nights
When Doug hears the call,
And a black dog waits in the hall.

There'll be damned souls for roasting
And champagne for toasting,
And dancing barefoot in the snow,
There'll be scary ghost stories
And tales of Russian glories,
If only he dares to go,

It's the most wicked evening of the year,
There'll be much mistletoeing,
With an azure fire glowing
In a suite to admire, not fear,
Traced in cerulean and black diamond clear.

There's Illyana ensconced on a chaise,
Reclining with dark supine grace,
A stiletto heel dangling from her toe,
A glass of gleuwine in hand,
Long golden hair fanned
And the Christmas tree softly aglow.

It's the most mischievous summons he'll hear,
A portal rimmed in flickering gold
Offering sanctuary from the cold.
Soft words dare call him near,
"Your Serenity," she says, "it's time,
"For Yule, will you be mine?"
Promising the most wonderful night,
With a quiver of delight,
Make it right.

The portal to Limbo hangs open wherever Doug happens to be, giving an image enshrouded in the faintest frost-bloom of passing chill. White gossamer mist covering snow-frosted woodlands mark the boundary between human dominion and that of nature, the long wastes dreaded by the inhabitants of the monasteries and the villages scattered like gems across the black-clad breast of Russia. Illyana indeed charms the very snowflakes to dance around her, though it could be the shock front between Limbo's current climes and wherever he stands. Still, she curls up with gracious ease, ensconced in the warm glow thrown between an actual decorated tree and a glimpse of garland.

If he strains hard enough, he might even see ribbon put to good use. Not on Xraxre, at least, or S'ym. A pillar with ribbon! A box with a ribbon! Even a wreath with a bit of it tied, though it's dark sapphire rather than red.

Cypher has posed:
Doug had been working this evening, electing to opt out of the holiday festivities. A melancholy sometimes takes him at this time of year, one that's difficult to shake, the confrontation of how completely the life he's living now is from the life he lived once before. Work is a comfort, a solid constant, and there's always something to do --

But when he looks up at that glowing portala, he closes his laptop, and gets up, shrugging on his suit coat and straightening his tie, before walks through it from New York City and into Limbo. He does have a gift for her, but he doesn't have it here. It's hard to shop for someone who's queen of her own hell-dimension, complete with a castle replete with treasure vaults.

"Not joining the party at the school?" He asks, one hand on his hip.

Magik has posed:
Oh, but to be a fly on the wall in a separate wing where only the X-Men -- her included -- go and maintain their communications in different frequencies. Cut through all the noise, everything is considerably similar on both sides of the mirror.

Illyana holds the portal open with a modicum of focus, suggesting that its distance from her cannot be that great though a glittering snowflake-speckled quartz or marble floor is visible. The temperature shift is a definite consequence of Doug walking through, a cool breeze following the negative inversion for a warmer space defined by baking under the roots of Yggdrasil, lapped by the fires of the Phlegethon.

"He came upon a midnight clear," she announces in a singsong as the pull on her mutation ceases. An extinguished note collapses the portal on itself, a ring of golden embers cooling down into a falling cascade of embers. If this place is the darkest part of her being, the Soulsword and the portals speak to celestial heights, still unvarnished in their brilliance. She glances to the wine but has yet to bring the glass fully to her lips. Accuracy or control might suffer, maybe both.

She slips her fingers further down the stem, swirling the contents around while her gaze measures that coat and tie. The man behind, in time, not rushed in any sense. "Undecided. I have not celebrated the holiday like that in the past." A heavy, understated truth moves under her, an iceburg that might not be something to peer too deeply at. "But it is important to do some things right."

It probably explains the decorations, the tree, the heady scent of the woods percolating through the underlying spice hinting at seductive corruption that just /is/ Limbo outside the wild, chaotic flamebath of destruction it so often likes to meld itself into. The blue fire dances and seethes, crackling away on a log of bone-white proportions suggesting birch or, perhaps, a femur. The mistletoe ball overhead, a very non-Russian tradition. "Sam helped me understand a bit."

Cypher has posed:
Doug exhales, "Well, it's all very... warm and cozy, actually, but with your own personal flair." He looks around, and then nods, once, before he shrugs off his coat again, and finds a place to hang it up, and loosens his tie. "I like it." He whistles to himself, and he's an excellent, trilling whistler, warbling his way through bars of 'Baby it's cold outside' before he finds a bottle and pours himself just a taste of what Illyana's drinking, and he scents it without putting it to his lips, as he finds a place to sit, his other elbow on his knee.

"For me it's just not christmas without Nana Ramsey's tuna salad with onions and peas in aspic, with mayo on top. It's was a Christmas tradition." Doug says, with a shrug. "I got really good at spitting it into a napkin without being noticed."

Magik has posed:
"Plenty of pictures and movies for inspiration." Illyana's admission is surprisingly demure, but sidestepping any blame that might be leveled on her. Not that Doug's response is unwelcome at all. Sometimes she dodges the attention levied in her direction, an old habit. In the meantime, she awaits him closing that distance. Everything about the chamber is cast in snowflake white and deep, midnight glass that betrays no true sheen save his own reflection. The wine he drinks has that same quality: dark, polished, a dance on the tongue and a glow down the throat as it settles. Gleuwine is like that, humming in the veins from the heat settled into its heart. Meant to be sipped or quaffed, the flavour has a rare richness for wine.

"Aspic. Jelly? Is it a vegetable -salad-?" She sounds rather perplexed by his description of something to be considered food, which clearly in her definition is not. English may give her the actual words in translation, but not how these piece together. "I don't remember Christmas well. It was always about the light. Candles, all the lights in the house on. Such an expense, it was so dear even then." She gestures to the fireplace, the white lights sparkling on the very normal, non-demonic tree probably portaled in to be there. "I do not know about your salad. Maybe we can try something tonight? Before the party?"

Cypher has posed:
"Well when I was a kid, it was all about anticipating gifts, santa claus, grandma's house-- the sort of thing where you worked up anticipation for a whole month and it seemed like the longest time in the world." Doug drains that taste of wine, and then says, "Then you get a little older, and Santa Claus doesn't exist, and, you know... the presents are nice but you're just kind of embarassed about the whole thing, because you want to be too smart for it--"

He gives the lightest of shrugs. "And then there was you guys, and for a couple of years the whole thing just had meaning again. Kitty celebrating Hannukah, Sam's giant family, Berto trying to conceal how happy he was to see his mother, Amara celebrating Saturnalia, seeing the tree in Rockefeller Center with all of you guys--"

He shrugs his shoulders, and then says, "And then I was gone, and when I came back, that was gone too. I usually just kind of let it pass by, since then."

Magik has posed:
The beats he lays out are all given a slight nod: Saturnalia cracks a ghostly smile, the family, the plunder of different traditions and ideas. Illyana doesn't interrupt Doug. She doesn't try to wedge in platitudes or empty statements, only rising up off the chaise with her usual effciency that brings her to her feet with minimal fuss. The leather pants are there, a starry top twinkling with borrowed light of so many snowflakes tumbling behind her. "Adrift, as time went forward, when you had not. Not at the same pace or parallel." A question hides behind the statement, but at least the sorceress supreme of Limbo understands that much at an instinctive level and how its vagaries cause trouble.

She halts, though, holding out her hand to him. The other wine glass is with her, still mostly untouched. If he wants it, he can take it from her without a fuss. "It has none of the natural stages of life. Slowly letting go. It doesn't always feel like you can fit back in, a piece there is no easy space for. We lie to ourselves, believing that. Thinking our friends cannot accommodate who we are now." She touches his shoulder then, if he lets her, running her palm down over the outer seam of the tailored coat to the elbow. "What is easy to forget, they are used to sudden changes and abrupt troubles too. We are mutants. The cycles of life and loss and growth can be dramatic and remorseless. It means we have the adaptability and durability to survive."

Cypher has posed:
Doug looks down, and then back up. "Yeah, I know. It just... sometimes, it just makes me so sad. And I don't know what to do with it, because how can I burden them with it?" He takes Illyana's hand in his, and then kisses her fingers, before he lets them go, and says, "So this time of year, I'm searching for how I fit -- but today..." he says, "I fit. We. Fit. And we can stay here or we can go visit the others, whatever we feel like doing and it feels... good."

"But still, I miss my parents. I miss Warlock. I'm still reminded of what's missing."

Magik has posed:
And again, with feeling.

Illyana leans over him and brushes her lips to his brow like an elven queen giving a benediction to a traveler on a doomed quest beyond the reach of her near insurmountable dominion, to lands heralded by shadow and the unknown. Sometimes, words are not enough and the sum of wisdom in her hand is a heap of grains insufficient to hold the vast truth required for the moment. "Does closing yourself off for a time soothe you or make it worse?"

What could be construed as a barbed comment given she offers a genuine question there, seeking guidance in a land mired in quicksand and misty bogs ready to cause her a misstep no matter how intrepid she is. The crackling fire quickens its devouring of the bone-white fuel, one of the logs cracking rather noisily and crumbling inward. She snaps her head up long enough to assure no danger steps out, and then cups her hands to Doug's face. "I came back once. I thought, maybe, my parents would see take me in and I could forget. They saw no one they knew and slammed the door in my face." It hurts and it doesn't. Listen and the faded memory is there, dimmed now, its edges lost like something from another lifetime centuries ago.

She continues softly, "No one knew what to do with the woman who came back. It's like that even now. They do not what to say. They are unblinking, uncertain giants moving ponderously for fear of breaking anything and sometimes the only act of defiance you can take to change anything is to live. Live and be. It never washes the hurt away, but it honours your losses and your gains."

Cypher has posed:
"Yeah. Mine don't return my calls. So I stopped calling." Doug says, with a faintly sad look. Then he glances back up to Illyana, and then lets out a soft laugh. "Look at us, sitting here, being sad." Then he turns, and drops melodramatically across her lap.

"Oh no," He says, his arm over his forehead, "Oh no, I have fainted."

Magik has posed:
She nods slowly, and then ruffles her fingers through the thick bangs swept so long they nearly blunt Illyana's blue eyes behind the long veil. "Time does not mend everything, but it goes a long way. For the rest, action. I do not have time to dwell on being sad often. This is not sad, not anymore." A roll of her shoulder tugs on the constellations dancing over her skin, dripping off the split sleeves formed into rippling banners. "I gave up my tears as a tithe to a demon. Piotr carries the sorrow on his shoulders and he will never let the burden down. So, living. Doing better. Fixing what can be fixed and honouring that which cannot. But I am Russian." Her sudden smile is sharp, the sickle moon ascending over the horizon into view.

"We are a fatalistic people. Our writers make that true," she says, drawing a line down her breastbone, thumb and index meeting in a circle. "Our souls move to darker tides. It comes where we are cradle of winter, whereas you have your drama and your solar blaze, American." A sharp underline there on the ears, even though she speaks English with proficiency outstripping most native born. Hey, blame Xavier. He implanted /his/ proficiency, and few equal that. She knows more than she should. The wine is offered to him. "Drink. Then tonight, dance. We laugh in the face of those sorrows. This hour is ours to make whatever we will. To Hell with anyone not returning calls or recognizing you. The world falls at our feet. Show me how to /live./"

Cypher has posed:
Doug thinks about that, and then he pushes himself up, and pours himself a glass of wine. He swirls it, slowly, and then he drains it one more time. "That's enough wine for me, I prefer having a clear head." he begins to unbutton his shirt, slowly -- he has a tank-top on underneath it, white and stretched over his athletic frame.

He slips out of his shoes, and then says, "Well," He says, "Then we can start here."

The music that swells is appropriate, if gothic, since this is Limbo, as he pulls her to him, and leans down to kiss her, drinking in the taste of the wine in front of the blue fire.

Magik has posed:
Already in those dagger-spiked heels, Illyana shouldn't be able to do more than walk with great care. She will disappoint any expectations of stumbling over. They are eye to eye for once, though it is hardly an assertion of dominance or an attempt to challenge him. Quite a bit different, the sartorial statement made. "Here," she agrees, "is as good a place as any. One day, let me show you Venice. Maybe Paris by gaslight. Places the world lives on, its spirit there."

The haunted shadow burning in the fireplace leaps to the fore with a chorus of unearthly voices yearning to evoke the minor keys. The deep choral hue paints the ceiling like the stripped down Gregorian chant that hums in ancient monasteries on the threshold of the true primal wild, those outposts on the furthest frontier.

Her hands meet with his, fitting together to start whatever dance there is. Lips, another matter, for every kiss is one that sings with new beginnings and fractal patterns spun on a kaleidoscopic reverberation. A grace note as the feminine voices melt into the masculine; caroling is a doomsong. A kiss, brilliant.

Cypher has posed:
When Doug breaks the kiss, he lets out a soft murmur, "Wowie-Zowie." He breathes. Then he clasps Illyana's hands. "What I want--" He says, "Is to spend Christmas with you. But also... to make this holiday great for everyone we care about. Because... they're our family." He says, "And we should be with them. Right?"

He gives a wide grin. "It doesn't even have to be gifts. We could just go pelt Berto with snowballs. You know he's dating Lorna, *after* he denounced Magneto publically?"

Magik has posed:
"Everyone needs presents. What do you give them, who are family?" Illyana has no answer for that, though not because Doug has stolen the breath from her. In truth, he has, but not all her reason. Her fingers curl around his, the lock on his wrists solid, a team effort to bind them together in the vagaries of space and life. "Snowball fights. Drop them in a portal to a bakery? More ideas." Rewarding each one with a kiss is an easy balance, and so they come, hard and swift. The Toccata dancing through the background swells and stirs, a whirlwind of flakes on the sky, organ notes creaking around the soaring vocal melodies haunted through it.

Doug's grin is one bound to be bruised lightly thanks to her. "No. I did not pay attention to him angering a mutant able to rip the blood out of him." Paying attention to some things, she apparently ignores others. "I was hunting down corrupted churchyard guardians so they did not murder parishioners and sinners. They are still out there, several. Xraxre and I hunt them, and you are welcome along if you want to. Not tonight, though." Her gaze flickers, chin turned upward. "Is now when you want to go? Or after we have opened a present? Do you have milk?"

Cypher has posed:
"I do have a present for you, but it's not here, it's at the apartment back in New York." Doug says, before he murmurs, "Well, don't tell Berto, but I got him a part in an episode of the 'Magnum, P.I.' re-make... who knew it'd be so successful and run for like ten years? I did some computer trouble-shooting for one of the scriptwriters when I was living in a cabin in Washington State. He's going to play the villain. The big ham's gonna love it. And I get to watch Thomas Magnum punch him in the face."

Then he says, "Milk? I mean I have some at the apartment in the city. I. Um. I got Reggie Jackson to autograph a bat for Sam. I'm actually pretty good at this networking stuff."

Magik has posed:
A lift of her brows suggests that. "Douglas Ramsey, why were you living in Washington? In a cabin?" She should not look so intrigued, sparkling shadow and deadly purpose crackling there without. To be fair, a good deal of those gifts blows right over Illyana's head, half his references something she clearly shows a blank response to. Magnum, P.I. to a girl raised in former Soviet Russia and then time-warped through Limbo. Reggie Jackson to someone without clear goalposts on what normal sports are? Right? Has anyone even taken that girl to a game?

Questions for later. She curls her fingers lightly and looks around, taking in the sapphire flashing windows and her own reflections up to multiple no goods, from walking to digging into a chest of some kind, wielding scissors in a frightening way to something quite else. Else being hard to measure.

But she blows out a breath through her teeth. "If these are the type of gifts you would want, I may need direction." Asking for help is worse than surgery without anaesthesia.

Cypher has posed:
"I wanted to be alone. I had a beard! I befriended a sasquatch and her babies... she got shot. Her kids just got mixed in with the other students in the junior grades at the school and nobody noticed." Doug puts his finger over his mouth, as he studies those reflections, before he looks back to the woman in front of him.

"Whatever you get me, I'll love it." He pauses. "...As long as it's not a severed head."

Magik has posed:
Skepticism is a powerful force, when completely healthy. A suitably lovely force, when it comes to actually dealing with the unknown. The mind wraps itself in armour to withstand that which might destroy its equilibrium and balance. For Illyana, something like this only serves to reframe a situation already imagined for someone very much capable of envisioning of ruin and the world's ending, and most that's in between. She licks her lips thoughtfully. "This does not help me a great deal. To find the right thing... or twelve things that might include one thing you want, one thing right."

Her hand is outstretched, and the first blossoming of light sparkles on her fingertips. Not magic, only firelight caught on the veneer. "Your first present is under the tree then."

Cypher has posed:
Doug murmurs, "The beauty of the act isn't in the gift, but in the giving. Not in the acquisition, but the sacrifice." He shrugs. "I know sometimese these things come hard to you, beautiful, that's what makes them all the more precious to me." He turns, and walks to the tree, before he bends down, and picks up the gift.

Then glances back to Illyana and says, "I'll show you that mashup of 'All I Want For Christmas' and 'The Beautiful People' when we get back to Earth." He carefully undoes the ribbon, and then neatly opens the wrapping paper, to open up the gift.

Magik has posed:
The little girl who once was, a pretty blonde thing, probably brought home lovely stones and pressed flowers to her older brothers every day. Her parents likely heard her songs and joyous little tales spun out from the long winters and wind-blown summers long as she could speak coherently. Not this creature hardened from the forges of Belasco's making, a hammer remaking her countless times over until that innocence is a diluted ghost in the extended measure of her life. Illyana doesn't so much as bite her lip or fret by chewing her nails, instead cold as the grave to some superficial degree.

Maybe. She stands by, utterly still, where Doug wanders to the tree. It's easy to spot the exactly one gift, alone. The wrapping is relatively neat, if involving at least two layers of tape to cocoon the priceless contents within. In fairness, the proportions are not that great. It would fit in the palm of his hand, really, without the cardboard protection and the nesting tissue fair and crackling in the most satisfying way. Silver and blue snowflakes, of course. She seems to like things that match. The contents might actually be overlooked, however, if he isn't careful. All that lies there is a simple piece of cardstock, at first glance, a rectangle that might easily slide into his wallet or back pocket. Not so much as a note or a symbol mars the surface, the pristine finish absent of any cream or alabaster shadings. It is exactly one colour, beveled and embossed around the edges.

Cypher has posed:
Doug looks at it, and then up at Illyana, his blue eyes... curious. There's obviously more to it, some fascination here in this dark square. What is it? He wants to know. "It's beautiful." He says, and he's sincere, though he knows it does something... but he doesn't know what it does.

He runs his techno-organic thumb over it, as he stares into those fathomless black square, trying to divine its secret.

Magik has posed:
Not dark: perfectly pale, devoid of all colour. It sits there, a neat and tidy cutout that begs for some printing service to come along and apply the right details. A name, an email address, possibly a sixteen-digit number with expiration date tied to Tony Stark's personal banking information. Not a single detail awaits to impress its purpose there.

Illyana raises her brows almost imperceptibly and, with her trademark directness, asks, "Do you know what it is?"

Cypher has posed:
"...I really want to figure it out," Doug says, still fascinated. "Wait, wait--" He tilts hit from side to side.

He glances upt Illyana, and he gives her a dopey look. "I don't know what it is."

Magik has posed:
"Do you want me to tell you?" An honest question, currency paid for the honesty given to her. She sinks down to her knees, assuming the position favoured by swordsmen for centuries, prepared to balance a non-existent blade over her thighs. In all mercurial moods faded, Illyana kicks off those heels after she settles in, watching Doug rather intently.

Cypher has posed:
Stubbornness wars with openness, and finally Doug says, "...Okay. Tell me." He says, squinting at it, before he gently taps it with the tip of a finger. Taptaptap.

Magik has posed:
Let there be reward in terms they agree to, the seesawing of mystery and clarity between them. Gauging her moment, Illyana leans forward onto her knees, balanced very carefully indeed. All it would take is a light shove and she might be toppled, sprawled out. Not very much for the dramatic moment.

Her sum of words in French is pretty limited, all said and done. Russians often /do/ love French culture, but she grew up closer to Beijing and Tokyo than she did the capital of France or most of its former dependencies. So the simple phrase is not too hard to decipher, pronounced more or less correctly.

Or maybe the lightning computer she dates -- a thought, wild, that they are dating at all -- can translate it flat out from Russian-inflected purpose without trouble at all. Does it count for anything, to use those scraps of another language just to tease him?

<<A white card.>>

Or, in other words..

Cypher has posed:
Doug facepalms, and then he glances up at Illyana and murmurs, "This is awesome. It's also an awesome pun." He holds it up between two fingers, and then takes his 'Superman' wallet out of his pocket, and puts it away. "I love it." He turns, and takes Illyana by the arms, and leans in to kiss her on the mouth, warmly.

"Let's go back to New York, so I can give you your present." He and Sam are splitting an apartment, though they're both so busy they hardly ever see one another, and Doug sleeps at the school just as frequently.

Magik has posed:
A light gesture introduces Illyana's face to her palm in kind; she simply cannot defy the edict to respond in kind to Doug. "What have I done?" The Queen of Limbo, brought low by her own teasing, so it will naturally devolve into very bad puns and waving a card around, yelling no takebacks are allowed in the very near future. Surely? Probably not.

Or maybe she is trying to hide a grin. Either way, he has carte blanche in literal form to go along with other things stuffed in that wallet. Kisses fall on upturned lips, if mildly bowed. "This is right, isn't it?" Her fingers trace his jaw, behind his ear, as though the answer can be found there instead of secreted in a book.

The portal takes a few seconds to form as she nips back at his mouth. "Sam is going to Kentucky. I offered to teleport him and Alexis." Oooh, more news. "Or give them warm clothes for the flight."

Cypher has posed:
"You ever had his mother's cooking?" Doug says, "I'd go to Kentucky for that."

Then he lets out a sigh of pleasure, and pulls Illyana in for a warm hug, his hands slipping around to lock at the small of her back. "It's so weird, but he's so happy with her. I'm glad for him." Doug says, as he rests his forehead on Illyana's. "I mean I always kind of wanted him and-- never mind." He says, with a shake of his head.

"I really did think hard about my gift, I hope you like it."

Magik has posed:
Illyana shakes her head slightly. "No. I have been by but they have a peaceful life, in the madness of so many children." Dizzyingly many children. "I keep my troubles from them." With a piquant shrug, she rocks back onto her heels and repositions herself so Doug cannot totally unseat her into the tree. The very notion of being hugged other than by someone whose name rhymes with 'Riotr' is probably a newfangled thing she struggles to deal with in kind, though she doesn't stay a frozen board of alabaster in his arms. Quite the contrary; the slow melt makes global warming look like a spontaneous combustion, but melting all the same. Her scrunched brow is surely felt, the quirk there. "Tell me what you wanted."

The next moment, he freefalls through six dimensions to find his own, a swandive backwards, forwards, crashing up, smashing down, put back together on quantum axes after being shunted straight into his apartment.

Cypher has posed:
That wild ride makes Doug... sneeze, but not on Illyana. Then Doug gives an odd little look at Illyana, and he says, "What do you mean? I really did love it. You thought really hard about it and you gave to me to make me happy, that makes it precious to me." He says, before he moves to run his smooth, black and shiny palm along her chin.

Then he turns and fetches a box, off of the coffee table. "I looked all over the city for this... and then I bought it at a consignment shop. Apparently it was brought over by a Russian immigrant in the 1890s. Go ahead, open it!"

Magik has posed:
"Him and?" A prompt, but it really doesn't matter considering the jump from Limbo to the normal timestream sends Illyana back into overdrive of a sorts. She tilts her chin up to Doug's touch, that tease of a tingle enough to jangle at least a few bells along the nervous system. "Sam and something? It is not so important." With a shrug, she follows him, giving the area a once over that probably digs deep into the walls and searches for any signs of magic. It comes naturally, anchored by experience.

So the box receives the same, even as he hands it over by a way. Taking it from Doug, she glances over the top for a clear sign of how to remove any wrapping and that hasn't a chance against her anyway. She tears in lightly, the emotional pull dragging her into the depths of what mysterious offering. Goodbye lid, if any exists. Hello, contents.

Cypher has posed:
...What Illyana pulls out is a dazzlingly bright antique silver samovar, as Russian as winter itself. It's the kind where you have to burn charcoal or coal to boil the water. Illyana's mother possibly had one very much like it. Maybe electric, though.

Doug watches, curiously, to gauge her reaction.

Magik has posed:
Any Russian knows what a samovar is. There are stories around them in every family, right up there with the dacha or the family stove, and how they kept you going in the dark of winter when nothing else could. The bed next to the oven was a coveted spot in those long-ago days of the early twentieth century when electricity was unreliable or outright non-existent in the rural frontier. Trading function for purpose, she holds up the samovar in both hands, peeking inside after managing to open the lid.

Her own reflection scrutinizes itself from the bright surface. So very bright, clearly polished within an inch of its life. Her fingertips fan out and she tilts her head, eyes hazy cornflower for an instant. Whatever she reads in the patina of age is purely between her and an overglorified, well-loved pot. Kettle. Same difference.

"Quality work." She nods solemnly. "I will make you tea and buy the bread from Little Odessa without being shot this time."

Cypher has posed:
Doug glances to Illyana, and says, maybe a little bit smugly, "I knew you'd like it." He tilts his head, and then says, "And I like you, beautiful. We could do whatever you wanted. We could go to Kentucky and visit Sam and his family. We could go bug Berto. We could see Rahne, or Dani. We could spill the beans to your brother... or we could just sit and snuggle?"

"I do like to snuggle."

Magik has posed:
The samovar she puts back into its box, because Illyana likes tea plenty, but not enough to dash off into the night and find some. It will hold. The cupboard isn't bare, and the shelves brim with potential raised by Doug himself. Faced by the exchange of gifts -- one that hasn't turned into a snake biting her or a stormy fight, she closes the distance to pirouette and fall against him. He can decide whether to catch her or drop together onto a couch somewhere. The emotional tug and pull between them is an everchanging situation, and on that, save to sit together. No monumental moment of saving the world or trying hard to do it, but one defined by two people.

"I don't know how to snuggle." A simple statement. Snuggle sounds /wrong/ on her lips. "But you can show me and we can try. Dani, Rahne, and Berto after. It's right we should spend time with them too."

But Russian to the core, queen of a hell, and simply herself, a girl not quite alone in the world. "It doesn't quite feel so real to have a little Christmas. Together." She raises her palm, fingers wiggling. "There is no rush. Snuggle me then."

Cypher has posed:
Doug snags Illyana in the crook of his arm, catching her first, and then collapsing onto the couch. "The key is absolute stillness. You just... cuddle up, and turn your brains off." He rests his chin on Illyana's shouldder, and then drapes his arm over her waist. "...It's nice to have family. And it's even nicer to have company." He murmurs. He's probably going to fall asleep.

Magik has posed:
And if he does? Is there anything lost to that? Imagine the next day, Sam wandering in to find the pair of them curled up asleep, wedged onto the couch. There might be a sleepy look and a glowing lightsab--- sword brought to hand on reflex. They might not even wake up. Either way, she looks pointedly at Doug. "Turn my brain off." Good luck with that. The gist, however, settles in as she slowly yawns, trying to stifle it and failing.

Warm? Check.

Comfy? Mostly.

Perfect conditions to doze off? Entirely.