10603/What Are You Doing On New Year's Eve

What Are You Doing On New Year's Eve
Date of Scene:	31 December 2019
Location:	Staff Meeting Hall - Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Magik and Cypher ring in the new year.
Cast of Characters:	Cypher, Magik

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Cypher has posed:
It doesn't take much to get the tables and such moved out of the main meeting room, and turn it back into the music hall. Doug is seated at a grand piano wheeled out of storage, and he's absently picking at the keys. "I had to take piano lessons for years," He says, "I always hated it. But sometimes..." He says, "I sit down, and it all starts coming back to me. You know?"

Magik has posed:
Illyana is part of the clearing crew, at least for a short time. She may not be the strongest or burliest of the once-not-student body, but she can do away with a stack of chairs effectively. Give her ten minutes after that and she reappears, considerably more put together than she was in her black leather pants and a black t-shirt with HELL'S BELLES written over the front in jagged, glittery print. Truth to power, and all that. Her loose blonde tresses pulled up and held with a pair of wicked hairsticks counts as semiformal, and if no one likes it, she might conjure up horns to make it worse. A vision in black, she saunters towards the piano in question. "No. We were too poor for a piano." Her head tilts. "Sometimes the radio would play Tchaikovsky, though, and the world would slow."

Cypher has posed:
Doug is wearing a T-Shirt with Mr. Sparkle on it, and skinny jeans -- He looks up at Illyana and then his fingers move along the keys in an arpeggio. "That's the most Russian thing I've ever heard." He says, looking up at her, before he gives her a little smile. "So what brings you to my little corner of the woods, huh?" He starts picking out chords, re-acclamating himself to the instrument.

Magik has posed:
She leans over slightly while Doug tickles the ivories, her breath possibly doing the same thing to his nape. "All this open space calls for a good swordfight. But no one is likely to give me a good challenge here. Maybe for the better, since I have to put several harpies in their place in Limbo and they require skill with flight." Her teeth give an edge to the words, anticipating a fight perhaps that threatens to ripple from the darkness. Watching him coax out the twinkling notes, Illyana reaches over to put her fingers atop his and feel how he moves the digits to produce song. "Better than dealing with noonwraiths or duskfiends."

Cypher has posed:
Doug considers that, and then he glances back up. He smirks, as nimble fingers dance across the ivories -- and since this is a Steinway over a hundred and twenty years old, they *are* ivory --

"Quand les cloches sonnent et que les cornes sonnent
Et les couples que nous connaissons s'embrassent tendrement
Serai-je avec vous ou serai-je parmi les disparus?

C'est peut-être beaucoup trop tôt dans le jeu
Oh, mais je pensais que je te demanderais tout de même,
Que fais-tu du Nouvel An, du Nouvel An?"

He beams, brightly. "Nice to know where I rank."

Magik has posed:
A Steinway of surpassing age and quality has a voice that even a girl without a strong background in music recognizes. It hums, and she is light enough in touch to avoid impeding Doug's playing. Well, there is at least some degree of impediment considering he must work with Illyana leaning against his side. She tries not to press herself too tightly in, and thus stopping the music altogether.

This is an alien language learned by touch, a cadence discovered through the unexpected means. The dance of slender fingers, the pressing of palms. Her breath halts long enough when he starts singing, parsing those scraps and pieces of French. Some of them surely stand out, the meaning grasped even if she cannot recognize them all.

"Is it too soon?" she asks at his ear, turning her face inward to graze the vibrations of words against his neck. "I could give you a year in a day, if you wanted it."

Cypher has posed:
Doug glances back toward Illyana, and he murmurs, "I always wondered. After I was shot, did you think about going back to try to stop it?" He asks. "Or did you try and did it not go right?"

He continues to play, slipping into the next verse.

"Je me demande dont les
bras te maintiendront bien et serré
Quand il est exactement 12 heures, minuit
Bienvenue dans la nouvelle année, la veille du nouvel an

Oh, je suis peut-être fou de supposer
Que je serais jamais celui que tu as choisi
Sur les mille invitations que vous recevez?"

Magik has posed:
"Bonne annee, Monsieur Ramsey. Je parle francais en peu." A squinching of her fingers indicates that shrinking margin of fluency, enough that she can pull her answers from dross instead of a spell thrown down to afford familiarity. She stands on her toes and steps back, giving space to Doug while contemplating his question over the wracked sheen of the chords plucked from the grand old dame. Rather than sit atop it like a lounge singer, she leans into the curve of the instrument.

"Changing time," she says, "has its costs. Outside of Limbo, especially. This timeline is one of a thousand thousand possibilities. If I saved you, I would have forked a new path and there is no telling what might have happened int hat period. I was not..." A brief pause as she has to rework the statement. "Such a decisive action could have terrible consequences. I did not have the control needed then, not even with all the help Jean or Xavier might have offered me. /No one/ here could have. Even now, there's a considerable risk although one I would pursue."

Cypher has posed:
Doug considers that. "It's just a question, there isn't a good answer." He says, before he murmurs, "While I can tell the French is suitably romantic, maybe I should try that again," He says, turning back to the piano.

"Chudo, ch'i ruki budut derzhat' tebya krepko i krepko
Kogda rovno 12 chasov, polnoch'
Vstrecha v Novyy god, kanun Novogo goda
O, mozhet byt', ya sumasshedshiy predpolozhit'
Chto ya kogda-nibud' budu toy, kogo ty vybral
Iz tysyachi priglasheniy vy poluchayete?"

"Better?" He asks, easily.

Magik has posed:
"It is the theory and the principle." Leaning over the piano, Illyana crosses her arms and braces herself. Her upper body follows the polished wood humming with a thousand notes. Sonically adventurous she might be, though in a different sense. "Someone would ask, 'Why not go back and kill Adolf Hitler? Stop Stalin? Napoleon?'" Her fingers curl along the rim of the Steinway separating her from the keyboard laid out beneath the creamy sweep of her limbs. "I could. Step back and halt the Kaiser from dying under Brutus' knives. Any of those times. And yet what becomes? I would not find my way home necessarily. These times and places could change beyond recognition or maybe not at all. Imagine nothing changed. Blood for arrogance, loss for unyielding pride. It wouldn't come free."

A slow winding thought leads her to the very end of a road, into the uncertain making of truth. Her toes barely scrape the ground as she leans into the piano and looks Doug in the eyes. "Besides. You might not be here with me now. And here you are. En francais, if you want to speak to me of that. I want to hear how it sounds. Compare it to Russian. Again?"

Cypher has posed:
Doug lets out a soft laugh. "I know." He says. "It was just something I'd wondered about." He leans his elbows on the edge of the piano and clasps his hands under his chin. He gestures to the flat top of the grand piano, and says, "Why don't you try?" He asks.

Oh, mais au cas où j'aurais une petite chance
Voici la question du jackpot à l'avance
Que fais-tu du Nouvel An, du Nouvel An?"

Magik has posed:
<<What's mine is mine, and I would not let it go,>> the Demon Queen says softly. An almost girlish statement. No elfin waif is she. No innocent girl staking claim to the scrap of the world, and guessing what might happen. This is no less than a barefooted claim, a thrust of a flag into the soil and a willingness to fight while the world rages in flames and violence. Illyana straightens up from the piano, stroking the polished finish almost grateful for the departure after it serves that singular purpose once or twice. On her own, standing beside him, she holds out her hands. "Voici la question du jackpot à l'avance..." Lilting back to Doug those notes, one by one, she forces her tongue around the rusted grasp of song.

Mezzo-soprano at the brightest, possibly a touch lower, but not fully into the contralto rage.

Cypher has posed:
"Que fais-tu du Nouvel An, du Nouvel An?" Doug sings back, leaning in. He seems... content, happy, almost the ebuillient boy of a few short years ago, though he can't quite shed the mantle of everything they've been through. Really, can either of them? But he plays and he sings, his blue eyes wide but also playful.

Magik has posed:
Playful isn't something Illyana is. Doug has to be that for the both of them, though she can give him material to work with. "What are we doing?" The four words strung together with a careless cast of a net might surely grab something of importance, skimming into the deeps and hauling up a truthful possibility out of the formative waters. She doesn't answer that for him, merely circles around the back of the bench with a precise, purposeful stride that takes almost nothing to become fiercer, more of a huntress' stalk.

Cypher has posed:
"Well right now I'm sitting in here before the New Year's Eve student party, playing and singing to you." Doug says, before he leans in, to give Illyana the ghost of a kiss on the mouth. Mmmmmwah. He sits back onto the stool with a *thump*.

Magik has posed:
How could anything bad happen in the current situation? It almost can't. A smirk touching lightly reddened lips from that kiss, Illyana leans back against the piano on the other side though the state of her posture with her feet slightly spread apart means the weight is purely on her. "Far cry from sitting at home eating snacks and going through television looking for something worth watching." The slow pursuit of an idea rolls around on the mind, as much as the words settle onto the tongue. "We have time before everyone comes. Have you ever seen the fireworks on Sydney's bridge?"

Cypher has posed:
Doug tilts his head, and says, "Did they start doing those again? The wildfires." He reaches up, to put his fingers through Illyana's hair, and then he says, "Where you go, I'll go. As long as you're okay with me being on occasion fused into a gestalt entity wwith my alien soul-mate who's also your friend. Cause... that's probably gonna happen now and again."

Magik has posed:
"They did when they found someone to suppress the fires. There are old magics for it. Other mutants, fire-eaters, we have many choices." Illyana nods to the question, certainly aware of the baked southern continent's troubles. The loose spill of her bangs feather and turn messy when Doug runs his hands through them, but the greater weight of her long blonde hair is twisted and held firmly in place with a pair of hairsticks that by length and reinforced metal could probably double as ice-picks and take down a very naughty Marxist. "How often does your gestalt happen?"

Cypher has posed:
"I don't know, I haven't seen Warlock in years." Doug says. "But it happened a few times, remember. Asgard. The uh, the other time. Just now and again." Doug says, before he looks at his techno-organic arm. "Sometimes I wonder if maybe--" He cuts that thought off. Then he tilts his head at Illyana and gives her a curious look.

Magik has posed:
The other time. The before times. Cleaving history in twain is not so unfamiliar, just as a generic decision when the year ends and begins settles into the calendar. "If maybe what?" Illyana doesn't supply a half-dozen possibilities into that space, instead leveling the unfailing ice-bright sheen of her gaze upon him.

Cypher has posed:
"If maybe..." Doug says, "You and I are the same, just in different ways. You have the Demon, and I have--" He holds out his fingers, "This." He pauses, and then blinks. Then he says, "But we can handle it. We can face it--" He begins to play again. "So, that leaves the question. What're we doing on New Year's Eve?"

Magik has posed:
Stepping into that space held by atoms and very little else, Illyana imposes herself. Circles of space fall to the pair of steps needed to unite them again, shadows intermingled, fingers intertwined as she grips Doug's hand and pulls his palm to hers, encouraging the other hand to fall to her waist. In that dress, she could attend just about any party in the city of a certain calibre. High, if not the highest. "Anyone with split souls or conjoined ones shares a certain similarity. You have your own differences from others, from mine. Not everyone understands the way techno-organic compounds interlace with us." She gives a wrinkle of her nose, forced to consider it.

"I would talk to Warren, given the wings. He might know more about long-term effects," she says softly. "It wouldn't be easy for you or anyone else to predict certain functions. But his wings do things. Your arm might, too."

Cypher has posed:
Doug considers that, and then he pushes himself up from the piano. She's in her good evening wear, a vision in black, and he's in... a t-shirt that's an old Simpsons' joke. Is that series even still on the air? He puts his hand on her hip, and laces techno-organic fingers through hers. "For right now," He says, "Beautiful lady, let's dance! Because there's nobody I'd rather be living in this moment with, right now, than you. Discussions of polycules with techno-organic aliens being tabled, for the moment."

Magik has posed:
Doubtful it is except in syndication. Illyana carefully waits until Doug is up and then she inclines her head. "Sydney Harbour Bridge from the opera house grounds," she says simply. Doug is holding onto her, after all, and it makes life very easy when a golden portal can form under their feet and supplant two locations in one. Three, if Limbo is called for. "Under the fireworks. Then back home, shall we?"

Cypher has posed:
Doug curls his fingers against Illyana's hips. "Sounds perfect." He says, simply enough. "If I'm with you."

Magik has posed:
Time shatters. Pieces fall around them, reassembled on the other side of the infernal slipstream that embodies Limbo. There scream hags and harpies, contesting presence in a violent uphaval that hardly stops their mistress and queen from stepping through. She is not to be slowed by this evidence of daily clashes, floating for a moment in space and hissing a direct, open threat against her subjects. Mortal in her arms vulnerable, the flash-fire of her eyes and a word of warning are not sufficient... but jumping through to Sydney on the cusp of a new year is another matter.

People probably protest being shunted aside, normally. Normally. Except they're seated behind a red rope, so to speak, beyond the gauntlet of VIPs admiring the great arch of the bridge. Boats floating in the deep harbour turn down their lights, while the masses congregated around the central business district gasp and shout in their anticipation. One great projector on a building marks the countdown: two minutes to go.

Cypher has posed:
"Oh, now you're cheating." Doug says, but his arm slides around Illyana's waist, and he pulls her close. He looks up at the clock, and says, "Here's to the future." He blinks once, and then says, "And here's to us."

He stares straight ahead, shoulders squred, bright-eyed, and unbowed.

Magik has posed:
"And you aren't, with that lovely talent for reading each and every person here. Try again, Ramsey." Words burn their presence against golden hair, and Illyana's tone is darkly amused. Together, they make hardly an imposing presence, one glittering and the other a relic of pop culture Americana of the aughts and naughts. The numbers tick down, slowly, digitized for the amusements and pleasures of the crowd. On the staggered shell dome of the opera house, shapes leap across and cavort: Aborigine art, the twisting Dreamtime revealed in a serpent dance, a bounding roo, things lost from the primeval beginnings of humanity's rule on the continent.

"Here /is/ the future. Our friends are in yesteryear," she adds, swiveling her wrist carefully and enforcing a simple murmured statement to keep quite from notice. Security /will/ see them, sooner or later. Wine is being poured, shared, as the scalding, scorching heat bears down.

Cypher has posed:
"But never far from my mind." Doug says. "If I'm going to dedicate my life to something," He says, "I think I'd like it to be all of you." His messed-up, misfit family, of which he paradoxically turned out to be one of the biggest misfits -- but he seems to be at peace, for the moment, with who he is and his place in the grand scheme of things.

When the clock hits midnight, he turns, with more boldness than most would dare, pulls Illyana to him with his arms around his waist, and kisses her, as the fireworks go off all around them.

Magik has posed:
Peace is important. Illyana might not know it, but she can certainly appreciate the need for it. Her arms wrap around him, listening, waiting as the crowd collectively draws its breath and excitedly considers their surroundings. Boat horns honk. People sing and shout, chatter restless. Music spills down from the symphonic quartet outside, a cellist accompanied by a violinist. In their solidity lies a certain ephemeral strength; with that, a song of calm and delight fades away into breath taken, heartbeats woven.

It rises, soft and sure, that anticipation that begins on the nuanced explosions. Seconds tick to zero. Minutes wiped off the map begin again and that kiss is a blossoming burst of heat between them like so much gold flame born of a spark on tinder-dry conditions. Let them laugh, bright and sure, a million voices calling out with their hands lifted or letting the fireworks reflect off glasses, windowpanes, flat black waters. Her arms enfold Doug and pull him down.

//Humans,// mutters the figure buried in her shadow, the barghest watching it all.

Cypher has posed:
In the end, peace is where you find it, and peace of mind is a hard-won commodity in this, the most dramatic of lives. And yet, they both know that they'd do it all again -- or at least, most of it. As the world explodes around them, Doug pulls away, the light of the fireworks reflected in his eyes. Perhaps one day, they'll lose their respective battles -- or maybe they'll win and move on to some other exalted plane -- but here they are.

Doug laughs, tickled by the thought.

Magik has posed:
Fragmentary joys will never last too long. It must be seized with care, grabbed when the opportunity arises. And so those who squeeze hold of the moment and never let go have a powerful choice, an opportunity to take hold of what matters most to them. Truths explode over them, the honesty of entertainment and calculated thrills met with the collective roar of a million voices raised from as many throats.

There is something profound and terrifying in the mob, especially when they accept the sudden marvels all around them. Possibilities sparkle with a countless number of stars dancing like embers from a fire all around them. Illyana holds up her hand as though she might possibly capture one of the heaven-sent messengers burning themselves out to deliver unknown warnings or prayers from the gods.

While Doug laughs, the stars chase them in a burning trail, copper dust ripped through the flaming buildings and the clashing armies at their feet seen in a blink -- here, Limbo -- as they shuttle backwards, sent hurtling to frozen Irkutsk, the nearest great city to where she rose. An exile-post lurking on the fringes of the frontier, Kazan Church's vast onion domes illuminated against the harrowing cold. Warming has changed it somewhat, but it's still close to -17'C, dipping deeper with the cold.

Cypher has posed:
Taken from the warmth of Australia, and plunged through Limbo into the bitter chill of the Russian winter without a coat, Doug wraps his arms around himself, and his teeth chatter. He looks up at Illyana and then says, "Illyana," He says, trying to huddle inward against the wind, "What are we doing here?"

He hops from foot to foot, trying to stay warm. It would be comical if it wasn't so bitterly cold!

Magik has posed:
"Wait," Illyana murmurs. She should be freezing in that dress, and she is patently chilly. That cannot be denied. But her arm wrapped around him, she hastens Doug towards one of the shops on a snowswept street where black tea is certain to be on the menu along with steaming bowls of borscht and other guests who wish to see the year turn. "Come with me. Let's get something to take back. It would be wrong to celebrate with an offering, and they must have the cookies I want."

Cypher has posed:
Doug looks up, and then he says, "Oh." He moves, briskly, though Illyana's arm around him does seem to relieve the chill somewhat. That does not stop him from finding the warmest possible place to stand, when the door of the shop opens with the jingle of an overhead bell, and he rubs his arms vigorously to get the blood flowing and warm them up.

Magik has posed:
The cafe isn't much to look at, probably last decorated in the 1990s. That leaves much to be desired but the scent of fresh bread and heavenly delights await, if one can manage in Russian. Which, of course, Illyana can. Her dialect is common enough here, if a tad rustic. She swiftly orders food, though she gets a once over for her strange attire, and the lack of a heavy coat.

<<My father's new wife,>> she mutters. <<Muscovite. She thinks I am immune to the cold, the fool.>>

The older woman, babushka and all, frowns as the order is swiftly compiled, and Illyana's smile a thing of pained brilliance. Fleeting rare.

Cypher has posed:
Doug obligingly steps forward, and puts a hand on her shoulder. His russian, of course, is perfect.

<<She's beautiful, no? A flower in the snow. She'd move Dostoyevsky to write a new ending to his books, for having seen her.>> He beams, brightly, turning on the charm, seeing if perhaps he can get some hot tea and warm cookies out of the shopkeeper.

Magik has posed:
<<Ugh, Marya is not beautiful. She is awoman with money for all the surgeons. Caviar is not caviar when old eggs washed in fish sauce.>> Illyana rubs her hands together briefly and sighs. <<Of course she wanted my coat. Forgive me, Grandmother, I should know better.>>

The weather is too chilly to be in that dress, and it undoubtedly requires sleight of hand to secure money anywhere. Surely? Though /where/ she intends to get rubles is another matter. While the older woman nods to one of the scarred booths for Doug and the blonde to take a seat, the sorceress reaches to his back pocket. "Hold still," she murmurs softly. All because portaling in someone's clothing for a stash of money somewhere -- Limbo? -- takes finesse, even for her.

Cypher has posed:
Doug looks out over the restaurant, and then says, "Illyana! Right *here*?" Then he frowns, as she pulls a wad of rubles out of his back pocket, and he says, "Oh." He puts his chin in his hand, and then says, "Right." He sticks his tongue out at her, and blows a raspberry. *thbbbt*

Then he looks up, and claps his hands, when the woman approaches with a drink of something hot and steaming. <<Wonderful!>>

Magik has posed:
Rubles indeed. "Where else were you going to have them? You left your coat in the car, and it's not as though my brother is going to be around any time soon with it." Illyana's loquacity is a rare thing to behold outside of rare instances, but this role she adopts with a sudden purposefulness. Whilst he blows her a raspberry, Doug earns a look as she's taken aback, pushing herself into the creaking vinyl that coats the booth's sorry upholstery. "Ugh! Why?"

All in Russian, of course. Her plaintive look means she passes the bosomy older woman the money. "Keep all of it. A New Year's gift." The sigh on her lips is fraught. "A box of portzelky, please? To go? I hope to have them with pryaniki too?" Ooh, Russian honey spice cookies are wickedly delicious.

Cypher has posed:
Doug murmurs, slyly, "Oh, don't be upset, pussycat." He reaches out to take her fingers, and kisses them. "If your brother sees you with me, he'll run me out into the snowbank!" He looks around, and then murmurs, "One day, your family will allow us to be together. Until then, all I have are these stolen moments with you."

He says all this loud enough for the old woman to overhear it.

Magik has posed:
"If my brother was here, he would be the soul of discretion and offer to do the dishes," dryly notes the blonde sorceress, waiting for the beet soup to be presented to her with a flourish. The pastries and the cookies will have to wait, but the slab of bread brought over for them to share is deliciously steaming and ready to be slathered in butter. "Are you proposing to make it official? How fleeting time has been, and yet not?" The twinkling of an eye and seven or eight years. Ask someone all about it.

Cypher has posed:
"If I was not worried about being dragged to death behind a horse, I would sing my devotion to you to the rafters of the church!" Doug says, holding his hands out melodramatically. He butters the bread, amply, and then after a moment he adds an equally ample amount of honey to it, and he inhales the scent of the soup. "Ah, to you, he is your loving older brother. To me, he is gigantic and overprotective!"

Magik has posed:
The Rasputin girl gives Doug a rather pointed look. "What, do you think we might dump you in the river, too?" Lake Baikal isn't all that far away and the terribly cold river, site of so much death in the great war for independence of the Tsar, isn't beyond a glance away. Look past the hobbled buildings on the outskirts of a rather large city of six hundred thousand souls, and there it waits.

"Overprotective, that is the definition of older brothers. Do you have any? Do you have younger sisters?" Illyana asks of Doug. "It explains itself."

Cypher has posed:
Doug looks away. "They've all fled to America, you know that." He says, "I am all alone." He gives her a pleading look with those big blue eyes. "Only I had the courage to stay, because of my love for you."

He splits the bread between them, and then says, "Even if your family threw me in the icy river, thoughts of you would keep me warm and give me courage to swim to safety."

Magik has posed:
"America," says Baba Cookie, putting down another glass of water in spotless confines in front of Doug. "Nothing good ever happened by going there."

Illyana is forced to offer a pained smile, but her spoon in the soup continues with a methodical elegance as she silences the spin and the flow of tasting her meal. It doesn't hurt to have a little here. With the woman hopefully bound on her way to find what she needs, the onset of midnight is a ways off yet.

"You lay it on too thick," states the blonde.

Cypher has posed:
Doug stirs his spoon through his soup. "You think?" He says, "I was being honest about one thing." He raises his spoon to his lips, tasting the soup, and then he adds a little bit of white pepper, before he takes a crust of the bread and dips it into the soup before popping it into his mouth and chewing.

Magik has posed:
Illyana raises her eyebrows slightly. "If my brothers let you 'be together' with me, then what?" Her lips are the colour of bright violets, crushed to attain a glorious violet-red hue. An impressive sight all the same, she daubs at the corner of her mouth with a napkin and turns to the black tea to heat her bones. "Or is the 'one thing' that you would think of me while you swam to safety? That river is a death trap. no one swims free except maybe my brothers."

Cypher has posed:
"Well," Doug says, "I'm being honest that you're very beautiful, pussycat." He smiles at her, blinking blue eyes, slowly. He really is just adorable, with that floofy yellow hair and those big blue eyes. "And while I drowned, my last thought would be of you."

Magik has posed:
The bread basket is shoved his way. "Eat more, for we have to get to our next destination. By choice, yours. I appreciate that you think I look pleasing to your eye." Illyana doesn't necessarily know what to do with compliments, but to her credit, she doesn't shoot them down. A win!

Cypher has posed:
Doug obligingly stuffs bread into his mouth. He's playing up being boyish a bit -- but he's in a good mood, and in the lightness of that good mood some of his other character traits show, like an impish playfulness. "Yesh ma'am." He says. Then he says, "...Pussycat, I really do have a question for you -- what could I do that would make you happier? What little thing?"

Magik has posed:
Bread tastes good when it's soft from the oven and butter melts into the honeycomb structure, filling the thick black creation with a warmth borrowed and imagined. The other flavours deserve to come through, though Illyana dips the bread in the soup with skill of someone used to not eating particularly often or well when it happens. "No ma'am," she murmurs under her breath. "It makes me sound like an old woman, and a bossy nag at that. I am not Baba Yaga yet." Baba Yaga might -really- like to know about her, though.

The spoon clanks as she sets it down, sitting. "You already are. You are here with me. Which gives you the gift," she adds dryly, "of asking for what might please you."

Cypher has posed:
Doug gives a grin. "Yana--" He says, before he looks up and into her eyes, "I already have it." He pops another piece of bread into his mouth and chews, thoughtfully, his jaw working up and down, before he drawls, "...Though where we go after we go here, that might count." He gets a little smile on his face.

The Star Wars theme park at Disney World is bound not to be too crowded at this time of year.

Magik has posed:
The Star Wars theme park might be considered off-limits except for the employees and vagabonds paying tons of money for the privilege. "We need to take this with us," she says, loud enough the cafe owner will hear. Standing means her dress clicks and rattles, the front cutout low enough the cold will bite straight through her once Illyana stands. Her hair pulled up with those sticks gleams and she holds out her hand. "You take that box of cookies and we can see about our next stop." No need to tell anyone they're vanishing around the corner.

Cypher has posed:
Doug takes the cookies under his arms, and he winks at the babushka, before he takes Illyana's fingers and kisses them. "Shall we be off then?" He says, before he loops his arm around hers, and escorts her out of the stop. Outside, he suddenly, and bravely, leans in to steal a kiss from her.

Magik has posed:
Off it will be, into that howling cold and the bite of frost on bare arms, on exposed skin. How can someone be so prone to cuddling if not for the most romantic of scourges, the Russian gale? It almost flattens Illyana back into the wall of the building once they step outside and she curses into that abrupt collision. It's not quite the excuse it seems to kiss him, to savour the nearness one has. Rather it's ensuring those honey-rolled cakes and the cookies don't end up brushed. "Wh-where are we going?"

A quick question, a salient one.

Cypher has posed:
Doug pauses, his breath a cloud of misty steam. "Sorry. I thought that was more romantic than it turned out to be." Real slick, casanova. He scratches the back of his neck, and then whispers it in her ear. He wants to go to Disney World. His arm remains looped in hers.

Magik has posed:
Payment is made by a swift retreat around the back of the buildings, where the streets are swept in snow and cars huddle, the kind of beasts unwilling to work in the numbing chill. Illyana doesn't suffer exactly, but remaining focused is hard, even here. She closes her eyes, pushing her hand against a doorway where the other side is likely a kitchen or the back entrance to one of the second-floor tenement apartments. From there it's a quick fall through, the nip of her lips against his cheek to give Doug a mark that might belay the sting of fire-hot winds pouring up from Limbo. The temperature shock is not kind, not at all, and the sting to distract him is important enough.

Another step: swamplands. Squishy ground, sun falling. It isn't so late if Australia seethes in the new year and it hasn't yet reached Russia. Disney World is a place, a sprawling one, one that she barely knows. But she knows enough of a castle, and it is on the lowest terrace they land. Much to the shock of a pigeon who flies away.

Cypher has posed:
The blush that raises on Doug's lips could stave off any amount of chill. This is a restaurant now! Or maybe Doctor Doom's disneyworld castle...

He looks out over the battlement, and he laughs, aloud, before he says, "This is nice... I was going to shoot for the star wars theme park..." He points, "Over there, but maybe we can get there the old-fashioned way."

Magik has posed:
"I prefer to see what I am looking for rather than jumping in blind. This has the best rooftop." The box of treats in hand, Illyana shudders to the change of humidity and the hiss of the wind. Her attention dances between the masses of people snaking in lines past the castle through various different rides, the usual theme park creatures prowling around with their handlers in search of bestowing joy on children. Not the sort of place she ever knew to go, but so it is. "Besides, you can enjoy the view while I try not to get us arrested. I am in a couture gown with Russian rubles and a /sword/." What swo-- that sword. It comes to hand in a flash of light, pale as they come.

Leaning forward, she asks, "So. Walk or jump?"

Cypher has posed:
"Don't worry." Doug says, withdrawing his wallet and pulling out his debit card, "This time, I'm prepared." He takes out his phone, and shows Illyana the inside of a uniform shop. "Can you take us here?" he says.

Magik has posed:
A debit card? Intriguing. A piece of plastic that doesn't end with 'Da Costa' or 'Stark' is mundane enough. She glances at the shop while Doug shows off his phone, and then nods. Her blade tips down, the coolest lightsaber ever -- it just takes a bit of thinking to alter its shape into something much thinner, though not capable of humming the same way. So with two good swings around that masterfully demonstrate her wrist flexibility, she presses the Soulsword into a portal and walks right through it. Hopefully -not- into the stock room. If they don't have a dressing room, it's *totally* the stock room.

Cypher has posed:
Doug looks up as he and Illyana emerge from the portal. "It's cool, it's cool." He holds up his phone, "Season pass." He just got those *now*. He strolls out of the back room and into the costume shop, and then he tilts his head and grins. "In the ninth movie, Leia had her own lightsaber." He hmmms... and then picks out the classic white robes. "...Fair is fair, you can pick something out for me, general."

Magik has posed:
"Season pass? For the Disney place?" It isn't something she quite understands, American culture with its love of a mouse who clearly has something shifty going on. Put her up against a pantsless duck, she might break into martial arts moves. But the back room -would- look odd for her to come out of after Doug does, so Illyana has to wait a few minutes and dart into the general morass of 'things that look like desert clothes.' Or bandage clothes. Or... why are bandages clothes? The question is all but written on her face.

On the men's side, it's all very dark and spooky with more robes than one can shake a zappy stick at, along with a few interesting suits. Flight suit one, flight suit two, flight suit bright orange -- she holds this one up as though measuring Doug up. Then her head swivels.

Full sized Chewie outfit? Clearly she is gauging.

Colossibacca or Chewramsey?

Cypher has posed:
"I'm a little short for Chewbacca," Doug says, "Or for a Stormtrooper, for that matter." That's a joke. But still, he's game, so if Illyana wants to put him in the furry pajamas, a in them he will go. "My favorite character's Lando," Doug admits, "But I don't know if I can pull off that skylish cape." He beams, and rocks backward on his heels.

Magik has posed:
Sorry, not part of the 501 here. Not that Illyana would know what it was if it came line dancing down Main Street and made a stop at Galactic Arm Avenue. She sketches her hands over another jacket, a beaten up canvas thing with more patches than not. "Everyone likes someone with a cape. I can pull it off." But then, she's wearing a netted skirt that shows off her legs when it needs to, so one can assume so. Pulling a hanger free, she heads over to Doug with the array of white jammies and brown. "The right choice. The man who fought all the way to old age, and he is Scottish. So there is a rightness there."

Cypher has posed:
Doug catches the outfit, and then nods, once. He pays for it, and then he says, "You absolutely could. Why don't you? You're a sorceress, you have totally legitimate excuses to cape it up. Me, not so much." He walks into the dressing room, and pulls on the outfit, changing out of his own clothes - they go into a locker. He walks out, and turns around. "How do I look?"

Magik has posed:
Illyana needs more time. Those robes have many robey pieces. Or bits that require more things, like hair in two giant cinnamon rolls as opposed to a single croissant bun with two hairsticks. Yana isn't going to manage that on her own, but forcing her arms into the cotton robes and flapping about is another thing. Petite princess of the Force, round one, probably worthy of giggles.

Maybe not. She has that flinty stare down pat when she needs to. "Do you buy or borrow these?" One bell sleeve swamps her slender arm.

Cypher has posed:
Doug gives big grin. "I bought them." He says. "You don't need to do the hair," He drawls. "I picked this one because it's one of her most badass moments in the whole series. She just peeled out with the Death Star plans and she's telling Darth Vader a bold-faced, obvious lie right to his face."

Magik has posed:
"You didn't have to do that." So sayeth a girl with a domain at her back and scraps of wheat in the mundane world. Illyana pulls her hood up over her face. "We did this backwards. We should have worn these and gone to Irktusk then. No matter, not the first or last time you will see it I am sure." She tucks in the belt slightly and hitches the hem so the swishy, beaded black skirt beneath is only slightly visible. Practical boots take the place of something else. "Now we have our robes. This is still not New Years. Others will be partying and playing, I am sure. Do you want to watch the fireworks in New York? Somewhere else?"

Cypher has posed:
Doug reaches down, and takes Illyana's hand. "We can watch them right here." He says. Then he glances toward Illeia, and recites, from a Star Wars novel he read somewhere down the line, "The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins -- but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back. Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars."

Magik has posed:
"There is always light, for without light, the darkness would be absolute," replies the sorceress with a fairly good idea of how the shadows work, how the night falls. Obi-Wan Cypheri or not, she looks at his hand and then up to him. "We can watch them here. Or we can enjoy the view from the garden I have. Or both, I think I could set a portal up here to watch while curled up on a flower bed."

Cypher has posed:
Doug considers that, and then he reaches down to take hold of Illyana's hand. He gives her a smile. "Curled up on a flower bed sounds like the perfect way to ring in the New Year with you. It's almost time."

Magik has posed:
Illyana wraps her arm around Doug, simple as that. "Then, let's fly. It isn't terribly far from here, and we can enjoy the fireworks in the fullest of degrees without anyone getting drunk. Which I appreciate, to be sure." She has the food, they have each other, and soon -- a golden portal.