10673/Slow Boat to China

Slow Boat to China
Date of Scene:	08 January 2020
Location:	Women's Dormitory (East Halls), Second Floor, Xavier's School
Synopsis:	All by themselves, alone
Cast of Characters:	Cypher, Magik

---

Cypher has posed:
    The knocker -- it's an interesting little widget. Hang it on any door that isn't occupied, and knock on it, and it becomes a portal to Limbo, that Illyana can open from the other side if she feels like it.
    Of course, after having received it, Doug already thought of a way to tease her with it. He hangs it on the door, and knocks... and then sits, in his socks and his jeans and his Xavier's School t-shirt, a ukulele from the music room in his hand. He strums it with a guitar pick, and bobs his head, as he sings to the Demon Queen.
    "I'd love to get you, on a slow boat to China! All to myself, alone...! Get you and keep you in my arms, evermore! ...Leave all your demons a weepin' on a faraway shore! Out on the briny, with the moon big and shiiiiny, meltin' your heart of stooooooone...!"

Magik has posed:
On the second day of Christmas, if technically the first by some Russian Orthodox traditions, the gift of said knocker is probably a terrible thing. It at first looked exactly like a little Ring doorbell device, or its Stark Tech comparison. At least it did; it might not a day or an hour after giving. As the mood takes, the device might shift. Perhaps the ornate appearance of the building will shift it to a properly elegant brass knocker. Put it on a Transylvanian castle and it becomes an enormous wrought-iron ring pull. It really doesn't matter whatever form counts, it works.

Thus, the comfortable thunk, thunk, thunk resonates well on a door that doesn't belong to Illyana Rasputina because no index suggests she has a room here. Maybe she does, buried in a pocket dimension or around the corner from Cindy's. Hard to know. All that comes assured is that the spell flares a particularly loud noise somewhere or another.

Surely the Demon Queen knows because the demon assigned to do nothing but listen for this -- he's got to be thrilled or horrified or both -- appropriately lights a cigarette and snaps his fingers to ignite a flaming glyph in the air. So the message moves through a place of uncertain time and bent space... or it could just send a text message to her, and so it goes. Whilst Doug plays, a slim gold line starts to form, leaking a pale white-blue light beyond it in beautiful tendrils that rapturously twist and seethe, seeking the source to latch onto. His voice permeates through the gaps broken in reality, thin slices piercing the mix. Bars take shape one by one, giving the effect of a stained glass window.

Ramsay-o, Ramsay-o, wherefore art thou, Ramsay-o? Scratch that, bad choice. "Would you ask that as your gift for the day?"

Cypher has posed:
Doug bobs his head from side to side, before he says, "Sounds like a lark, but really it's just a song!"

He continues strumming that ukulele, and sings along. "A twist in the rudder, and a rip in the sails, drifting and dreaming... honey throw the compass over the rail! Out on the ocean, far from all the commotion..!"

"Besides I don't really want to go to *China* today... but I do want to sing to you, Endora! Merry Christmas!"

Magik has posed:
The vocal athleticism common to many a good singer are not exactly in Illyana's wheelhouse. She is neither the equal to Andrea or that Nick person, no famed singer like a certain Alison Blair. But nonetheless, she can carry some kind of tune.

It needn't be proven at the moment. Doug does a fine job on his own without the need for additional prosey answering him. Not yet, anyhow, for she fills in the portal with that shimmering latticework growing thinner by the moment. A meniscus on the slash in the world's fabric gives the wavering effect of rain on a window pane, or perhaps moonfire sheeted on the fabric of source.

"To hold your heart, to hold your hand,
Would be to me the greatest thing,
To hold your heart, to hold your hand
Would be to me the bravest thing."

Cypher has posed:
Doug looks up, and then he sets the ukulele aside. He tilts his head at Illyana, and then says, "Would it really be that brave? I'm just me, Illyana. You know me. Just like I know you. What's a techno-organic virus and an army of demons between the two of us?" He extends his hand, black and gold fingers outspread. "You can hold my hand whenever you want, Illyana." As for his heart? Well. "Do you really want my heart?"

Magik has posed:
Probably to eat! Surely that would be the demands of the blonde sitting there -- floating -- in proper lotus position, her feet propped up on her thighs and doing a definite amount of strain to her knees. The thinnest arc of a complex glyph lies under her, and if there happen to be reams of tape and paper decorated in snowflakes, spangled penguins, and the odd picture of the Avengers stamped cartoonishly onto a blue backdrop then so be it. Christmas is as Christmas does, and naturally she excels when it comes to folding and cutting. Nothing to break the mystery of what Illyana considers a proper gift for the other students, though.

The lilting mezzo tones lift upwards in raw, acoustic refrain. Of course she can summon the backdrop of a piano with the wave of a hand to supplement being unable to likely play more than a few notes of Ode to Joy or the Soviet national anthem. Reply to Doug is slow, almost aching in its composition.

"Could you take my place and stand here?
I do not think you would take this pain,
You'd be on your knees and
Struggle under the weight.
Oh, the truth is a beautiful thing."

Her head tilts, that hint of a deprecating smirk forming even as her gaze is shrouded. She flips her hand, fingers curling slightly, stretched out to the margins of the diamond-paned portal. All he has to do is step through.

Cypher has posed:
For a moment, they stand there, reaching out toward one another -- one in one world, one in the other. Doug lets out a sigh, as he dangles the ukulele by the neck with his left hand, and then he says, "Well, you're the royalty. I'm just some guy." He reaches his hand through the portal to clasp his fingers with Illyana's, and then he steps through. It closes behind him, and the knocker vanishes. Vip!

Magik has posed:
The world falls apart and reassembles itself on the backbone of that interdimensional portal, a freefall swan dive into the hellish abyss that she rules in kind. Torrential shadows rip and distort along unnatural geometry, the freefall and the flight roused together save by around her hand where the grip is certain and strong. A singular point to hold to the infinite abyss around.

And then, it simply freezes in place and he is in that chamber on high, windows glassy and bright, overlooking the madness that is Limbo incarnated in all its roiling dimensions. Her cool expression remains a frozen, near measured thing.

"I wear another thought of you," she intones, the song perfect in its words if not in the tune exactly. The low, emotive riptide under it has to count for something. Its expression holds all she does not.
"
"With so much harm, my gift to you,
Hide you somewhere they don't know;
Deep in my core you know you have a throne."

An answer without one, a truth without a truth?

Cypher has posed:
Doug thinks about that for a long time. He looks down at... Hell, and then up at Illyana, and at his fingers in hers -- and then he RUINS the mood by sticking his tongue out at her and winking one eye, nyeh.

"You know..." He says, looking around, "When you say that to me, I kinda believe that I do? I mean some days I still feel so ORDINARY --" He rubs the back of his neck, the wind ruffling his hair, "...But not so much when I'm with you. I mean I feel ordinary but also... not."

Magik has posed:
Up, then down, and up again.

The appraisal warrants another smirk, and the repetition of the chorus, lilting up and scored down again. She cannot claim the lyrics to be her own, naturally, another band's work but one that clearly imprinted on the prodigious memory of the Russian sorceress.

Only then when he sticks his tongue out is Doug subjected to her unfolding her legs and finally, finally stretching out to stand. The distance between them narrows with his hand held still in hers, or vice versa; it won't matter entirely once they are balanced together in yin and yang, bright and frosty.

"Ordinary is important. We forget that too easily here. Everyone has a talent. Some look at Jean or Ororo," she says slowly, "and they feel poorly done by in comparison. They cannot shape minds or atmospheres, but only mold plastic or produce spikes. Is that a reason for shame? To be lesser? I hope it is not so. You have your own talents, and they might fork further the longer you use them. So much about you -is- a mystery."

Cypher has posed:
"Yeah." Doug admits. "I just wish I didn't need to work out so much to keep abs." He says, "I work out for like, two hours a day every day. I eat a metabolically perfected diet. Unless it's cheat day I can't even SMELL cake." He puts his hand behind his head -- and then he leans out to play-bite Illyana on the end of the nose. "Chomp."

"Merry Christmas! I just wanted to tell yo uthat."

Magik has posed:
"Merry Christmas," Illyana replies in that rather deadpan tone. "I would tell you the food here is free of calories, but we know that to be a lie. Anything I could give you that would sustain you is either made of magic or would do terrible things." She has to be serious, right? Still, she smooths her hand down her sweater and it flips into a t-shirt, an art deco frame in Alphonse Mucha style around an equally lavish, art deco cake on a plate with a wicked looking black cat prancing underneath it around her stomach. If it's any consolation, she keeps her figure by ruthlessly slaughtering visions with that sword.

"Metabolically perfected sounds terribly dull. Eat the cookie." Of course, the Demon Queen -would- say that. "Are you happy? With us and this?"

Cypher has posed:
Doug frowns. "I'll get paunchy."

Then he glances up. "Better question: Are you happy?" He tightens his fingers through Illyana's. "Because you've known so little happiness, 'Yana, that it means a lot to me that you are, even a little bit."

Magik has posed:
She looks blankly at him. "Paunchy?" It is apparently impossible. "You are lankier than Berto and certainly not as made of brick like Sam." Oh, kindness! She truly has no bloody idea. "Practice in the Danger Room. It is certain then you will not have a problem with that."

If only practicality were something that could bend, in the end, to other matters. That it might sacrifice itself better to the task at hand, humility and mirth blended together. She runs her tongue against her teeth, a measured approach. Happiness in Limbo; it almost deserves a double take. "I am always aware life is ephemeral and phases fleeting. My betrayer would have it that such things cannot be trusted; the illusion beguiles the weak mind and introduces an easy opportunity to take advantage of me. To twist me, the way he did." Thoughts that will settle in their way, tumbling straight down a waterfall to alight on a sharp, hard point of an answer. "Standing alone and apart is the cost of my mantle. I understand Erik better that way. Yet? I can believe... maybe, somehow, you will keep showing up. We can do things that will not be your doom. Happy, yes. Wary, too, that something will break and hurt you."

Cypher has posed:
Doug thinks about that, and then he shrugs. "Mythology says that people who die and come back from the dead aren't the same. They're empowered by it, they're *more* than they were before, in every sense of the word... but also separated from the life they had before, by-- by something. Maybe that dying and coming back means that I'm better able to connect with you, be a part of *your* world, especially since something like that happened to you."

He gives a sheepish grin. "I also use a computer all day. The second I slip, boom, tubby Doug."

Magik has posed:
"More," cautions the sorceress, "but often change. Death is a transaction and a transformation. Not to be feared. Approached with caution for what we were in a more innocent state changes. I am not Dani. My views are shaped differently from a Valkyrie." A shrug of her shoulders ripples there, graceful as ever.

Yet even so. Her slender fingers tiptoe up Doug's arm. "My deaths are not done. There will be more. I will return. You might find the child or the adult, the demon-ridden girl or something unrecognizable. Would that the team always remembers to chip away at it to seek me again." Another point and Illyana screws her finger lightly into his bicep.

"Get off your computer now and then. See if you can interface with other things too."

Cypher has posed:
Doug gives a little smirk. "I'm a plug and play sort of guy..."

Then he sighs, and rubs the back of his neck. "They say I have the power to communicate with anything capable of it. I just want... to be with all of you. To be a part of your lives. I want what they tried to take from me. Maybe what they did take from me. How often are we all together?"

Magik has posed:
Truly, that gives her cause to smirk. "Are you?"

Kingdoms fall for lesser looks, such as they are. "I cannot speak for them. I want my soul back. I wish to be free. This I understand better than anything. Maybe it is why we work." To the chomp earlier, Illyana actually goes for his hand to bring it to her lips. How courtly. Except she nips his knuckles.

Cypher has posed:
Doug's eyebrows go up at that, and then he muses. "I have an idea." He says. "I was thinking about it?" He says, "And lifeglow is replenished in techno-organic objects by draining energy from living matter. I used to share mine with Warlock when he was running low, and I always recovered."

"So if it would help you feel more complete--" He meets Illyana's eyes, "...Take a little piece of mine."

Magik has posed:
"Mine," says Illyana, "is trapped in the amulet. Trapped as stones. I need to recover them and then to cleanse the pieces gone to darkness. "It might work for a time. But the hunger, the hunt and the darkness are always there. The want is so strong, if I devoured you little by little, I might want it all." A musing sound escapes her lips. "A little piece, and how I might long for my fill." O the thief's lament.

Cypher has posed:
Doug considers that, and then says, with an open, ingenuous look, "...I've died in worse ways."

Magik has posed:
"Idiot. You think I'll let you die?" This, from the teen Sorcerer Supreme. She cannot defy her age.

Cypher has posed:
Doug gives Illyana a look. He blinks slowly. Then he beams at her. "And you think I'd just let you lose yourself to the dark?"

Magik has posed:
She shakes her head slowly, frowning. "You would laugh at the dark and then be too stubborn to let it go, I think." Think and do being what they are, she shrugs. Some truths are bone deep.

Cypher has posed:
Doug quirks his mouth, and then he puts his hands on either side of Illyana's face, lightly. He leans in, and kisses her, soundly, and then he lets go. "I'm tougher than I look, beautiful! Come on. Let's go make the rounds and see the others. It's second Christmas, after all."