10908/Reunion of Snowflakes and Steel

Reunion of Snowflakes and Steel
Date of Scene:	28 January 2020
Location:	Backyard - Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Big brothers are best brothers.
Cast of Characters:	Colossus, Magik

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Colossus has posed:
    The moon hides humbly behind the wisps of cloud that trace the heights of the night sky. It's silvery glow casts long shadows upon the world far below, letting the great trees in the woods of Xavier's manor cultivate an eerie air that is only made moreso by the way the fresh snowfall stifles the noise around. Flakes still continue to fall from on high, the hints of overcast giving everything a grim greyishness.
    For most people it is a perfect evening to hunker down inside under a cover, to have the warmth of a fire going, to have the joy of nearby company. But the young Russian known as Piotr Rasputin? He is not most people.
    For he is outside, large boots leaving equally large tracks in the snow as he walks. Under the arm of his over-stuffed red ski jacket he carries a bundle of logs and branches, bending over now and again to pick one up and tuck it under his grip. At times he would pause and lift his eyes upward, a tendril of steam escaping as he exhales, a small smile upon his lips.
    For now he is making his way back to the manor, walking up behind the garage to the wood pile where they have logs gathered for the occasional bonfire. It's there that he starts to deposit his bounty, taking the time to break a few branches over his knee so they fit better.

Magik has posed:
The moon might not recognize the girl with blue foil lashes framing pale eyes gone almost silver by contrast. It certainly hasn't found white-blonde hair streaked by pale opalescence, a flash of the auroras somehow painted on there. But glittering from head to above-the-knee, Illyana traipses through the manor like some cybernetic dryad of the digital age. She could be an elemental nymph escaping a concert or off to lure people to their social media likes, followers aplenty falling at her feet. Those boots are at least suited for crunching through snow as much as taking a stage, though they're silver as crackled glass.

Where on earth has she been? The trees do not deserve that sort of augmented ornament left over from Christmas. She breathes out steamy clouds and takes in the pines, the firs, the odd crackle of smoking wood. So the younger Rasputina carves her own path in the woods. To Grandmother's house they do not go - it has chicken legs. But this is easier to follow since the tracks give her something to follow.

Hunting a Russian bear is easier when the Snowflake Girl to Ded Moroz. Eventually their paths collide. She simply heads in as he comes out.

"Oh what a wonder, oh what confusion,
Ded Moroz has got his call!
Fill up the troika with ammunition,
Against ice and the cold nightfall!" she sings. Not half bad either.

Colossus has posed:
    To see them at a glance one would likely not connect them as brother and sister. Especially with her inorganic ornamentia that had drawn the eye of others earlier, and from her sibling it causes him to draw up short rising to his full height there on that path outward.
    The tall brunette gauges the short blonde and there is a wry smile settled on the lips of the former as he crosses his arms over his great chest. "Ah so here she is." She knows that tone, affected by her big brother when he attempts some hint of authority similar to their parentals.
    But it's ever the eyes between them, or in the bright blues of his she can see the smile that reaches there even for one so often stoic as them. "Illyana."
    A strong arm slips around her to draw her into an embrace. Presumptuous is he not? When so many are wary of the bladed and edged young Queen with the demon's smile.
    "I am glad to see you. Will you walk with me tonight?"

Magik has posed:
A frosty little ornament, Snegurochka for a winter's night, if imagined as worthy of a concert. Illyana has come a long way and yet this, in her glittery dress and opal hair, is probably truer to the dreams of a dazzled child on the shores of Lake Baikal. The frozen, glass-clear water always did thrill. She tramps through the snow that his boots have not flattened, breaking the crust into so much diamond dust.

She ought to be cold by all accounts. But her chin lifts and the cool, washed out gaze takes Piotr in all in a go. "Were you hiding out there to get away from everyone?" An act more like her own, but conspiracy theories roll so easily off the tongue. Russian instead of English. It's a rare treat.

The electric zing of her magic is there, but hard to trace. Some small part of her is watching elsewhere. But mostly here, the faint turn of a smile. "Medvedyi," she says, squishing the final syllable. The bear. Always the bear as he hauls her in for a hug and she returns it with a pair of spiked bracelets shifting their thorns so as not to scratch. Like she ever could. But the points there are strange, the same gleam he wears in his other skin. The armour, then.

"I would like nothing better. It is beautiful out like this. Almost quiet." She puffs out a breath again, watching the cloud form and fall apart. "If it were possible I would live outside for winter nights and leave the days to everyone else."

Colossus has posed:
    "Nyet," He offers to her as he slips to the side off their track to take up a branch as large as her leg and proceeds to crackle it across his knee, slipping the two pieces under his arm as he tilts his gaze toward her. His breath dances with each word, wisping over his features at points as he slips into the ease of Russian between them. "I would not say hiding, Snowflake. I would say perhaps, embracing the Winter."
    That said he smiles and pats her upon the back with his free hand as they begin their trek, his gait slowed so she can fall into step with him and their stroll taking them more toward the dark of the woods than the brightness of the mansion with its windows gleaming.
    "Katya has asked me twice now have we had time to talk? And I have told her only in passing. So it seems to me that time is here now, yes?" He bends over and takes up another smaller branch this time and tucks it under his arm. "So now you will tell me all that I have missed and that has passed."
    His head nods as if this was a foregone conclusion, and he was but reminding her.

Magik has posed:
With Piotr breaking snow, not that the depth is great, Illyana drafts off him like a sports car after an eighteen wheeler. She should be colder than she is. The glitter of moonlight on her gown tarnishes it to softer silver, pewter melting away. "You are nostalgic for the real cold? It will not get worse than this unless Ororo has mercy on us." Combing out her hair doesn't make any clearer if that's a dye or a wig or something between.

"Katya means well. Sometimes she is much too American, though." No sigh, a mere observation. The plants on the way are dormant, curled up to sleep. Trees get a fond pat in passing, their sentinels against prying eyes where spells don't work. "Everything for them is right now and open like a book. So much hurry. We go slower and it suits me fine, sometimes." It's no excuse but acknowledging differences that few see.

"All that has passed? It has been this coming and going. Erik is focused on his Brotherhood more strongly. Rogue and Jamie Maddox got more heavily involved," she says while he picks up sticks. Like children in a dark fairy tale. Next comes the quiet dacha, a warm oven with room enough for both of them to sleep atop it, Russian style. "So I hear. Maybe they do not settle comfortably. Going from Avenger to that? It is an unwise step, maybe. I kee out of it for now. Too many of the younger students think these things are games, not revolutions. There was a dragon that attacked in Central Park, and I helped to contain him. He's in Limbo instead of burning the city down. An immortal dragon, did you know that? Fafnir from the stories."

The smile tells a lot of her amusement on that. It's so rare to see. But it fades, mist in morning. "Thor, the prince from Asgard, came to ask our help. Kitty was there when someone took Avengers off into space. They want to bring some of them home. No news yet how. His rainbow bridge, it seems, but it would be so much faster to open a portal and take them, da?"

Colossus has posed:
    "I..." Piotr straightens up, his steps faltering for a moment as Illyana broaches the idea that perhaps they could have a True Winter(tm) and he turns his head to the side to look at her, one eyebrow raised. "I do not know. I in some ways like this do you not?" He gestures to the small tableau before them, the half a foot of snow, the fresh fall of it, the peaceful landscape.
    "This reminds me of the early nights. When the Winter has just fallen and there is so much ahead of us..." His other eyebrow joins the first as he looks int he direction of the lakehouse. "Perhaps I am just waxing nostalgic indeed, yes?"
    That said he continues on. When Katya is declared so very American his lip curls upward and he gives a nod of agreement while they stroll. Magneto is brought up and he frowns a little, cannot help it, though it's not as pronounced nor as dour as it has been in the past.
    "A dragon?" He asks when it is mentioned. "That is curious." Then of course his thoughts shift in this direction, "Does Lockheed get along with this new dragon?"
    Finally he nods a little further about the Avengers, then slips off the trail to procure a branch. Or at least what he thinks is a branch. Only it is a small stump that he must grimace and twist to get out of the ground with a crackling snap of roots giving way. A grunt and he has it in hand, holding it there. "The Avengers have been good with us. If we can help them we should."
    Then he lifts his chin, "But all of this is news. How are /you/ doing, Illyana?"

Magik has posed:
Is there a note of wistfulness for faraway cold? The remnants of ice on the glacial-lcoked plains? Illyana tugs at the bangs trying to hide her face, scoured over her eyes. Future perfect moments might have her striking curious poses to blow the fringe away a moment before running into a tree, but not here. She stamps around on a circle to knock ice from the treads of the boots, then sneaks up beside Piotr to view things from closer to his perspective. Just two feet down, give or take.

"Is it nostalgia? Not enough people like it. They have snowball fights but complain of the grey, the chill, all the layers to make them sweaty." Her arms cross over her chest, and she shakes her head. "It deserves to be taken as it is. These walks are good to clear the mind."

On then. Keeping pace with him is not too arduous, always three steps for his two. Springing goes one way to another. "A dragon. A real one. We fought it, several of us. A queen of Atlantis, Thor, the Hulk, a man who could become a crow. Me, too. I was not the /very/ first to charge it either." In case he harbours any concerns about the relative safety of the little snowflake, especially ones attacking legendary monsters that probably can't die. "Lockheed has not met him. I sent a few legions after him to keep them busy. Fafnir is very large, and very grumpy. He took several direct hits from that hammer -and- the Hulk, without seeming to be slowed a great deal. You would not have had an easy time, but he might have kept you. Dragon hordes and shiny things."

The dry humour is hard to spot. She really isn't good with jokes outside Russian, but in Russian is another matter. A glimpse of the girl who was, once. When he hauls out an actual rooted tree, her eyebrows lift a little. Then she nods emphatically. "It doesn't matter. They could be old men from Brighton Beach. They were taken from a party by someone who threatened them. They have Captain Rogers." Her eyes flash, for a moment missing the colour. Just pure white. "They took him to scare us, maybe. I don't know, Piotr, but it is an insult to me. If this takes much longer and people know he is gone, we might just have to go ourselves and apologize later. Isn't it enough to have a link to him and the way to open an escape route?" Typical teleporter thinking. Maybe.

"I am tired of waiting." He asked. She gives up that much, shrugging. "Happy you are home, of course. Sometimes these everyday lives they have are so strange. How everything that dominates talk is so... so..." Happy? Inconsequential? Devastating? "Different? But I am trying, and Kitty seems to be happy about it. Sam, he makes it easier. You should spend time with Alexis, da? She had a bad time when she came out. Her skin can change too. But she seems nice and Sam, he would never keep anyone bad around except me. I forget myself now and then around some of the students. But not very often."

She looks away into the snow. "It doesn't feel real. Something dark should hang over us. I keep waking up and it has not happened. Instead I have burnt breakfast often, and I have you back. We go out sometimes. Katya expects me to blush and hide the fact I am dating, I expect. That's new, too. And I chose him, so there is no worry someone takes advantage of me."

Colossus has posed:
    A low rumble of a chuckle slips from him, not the subdued laughter he gives voice to in mixed company, but the true laugh that is unhedged by self-consciousness. He shakes his head as he looks across the way at her, considering the words she offers about the dragon but letting her tell her story.
    He does, however, interject briefly. "There are surely worse fates than being a kept man in the hoard of some dragon." But then he falls quiet again as she speaks, moving along that forest path that now arcs and curves around the angles of the lake. No lights within are lit at the boathouse, so that feeling of distance is maintained.
    At the mention of Captain Rogers he nods slowly, snow flakes catching briefly upon his features and then melting almost instantly. He pushes a gloved hand over his head as if to straighten his hair but serving just to lend another aspect of chaos to it. "We should render what aid we can with the good Captain, yes. But we should work with the Avengers so we do not endanger any rescue efforts they may have." He says this with a measure of solemnity, surety. As if a situation as this may have passed before and taken an ill turn.
    She makes mention of being tired of waiting and his eyes lift a little in that brotherly way as if to say, 'what else is new?' But it's tempered with understanding as she continues.
    "Alexis and Sam... I mean Bean. They both seem like fine individuals." But then there is a subtle feeling as Illyana's words... they take on something more. Something more of the real. At first he turns to look upon her, brow furrowed. Then he nods slowly as he bites his lower lip.
    The gathering of twigs and branches and that one stump are set down upon the path gently as he turns to face her and then kneels. His hands rest upon her shoulders gently as he looks up into her eyes. "I know it is difficult for you, my sister. I have some small sense of the weight that you carry. I know the effort you take to try and to simply... endure."
    His blue eyes flit back and forth between her eyes, as if seeking the depths for a glimpse of that young girl he had carried on his shoulders those too few years ago. He takes a deep breath and murmurs, "I have lain awake at night. Many nights thinking of the past and examining what there may be that I could do to help. And the answers what there are I find fleeting, slipping from my grasp."
    He takes another deep breath, eyebrows beetling together as he adds, "I only know that I can be here for you. To try and shoulder what burdens you carry as I can. And I will do so."
    There is a pause as he watches her.
    Then he draws her into his arms to embrace. To just hold her.
    It is a time that passes. Longer and likely more for him than for her.
    Then he draws back holding her once again at arm's length. And only then does it seem to register when he says perhaps /too/ nonchalantly...
    "Now. Tell me of this boy?"

Magik has posed:
"A dragon that likes to strew ruin through the stars and devour cities? He has great contempt for humans. I am familiar, though I wish I were not." Illyana speaks in the level flatness of her usual delivery, even out here. Sometimes, that ambiguity serves as a shield or something useful. Forests shroud and protect, flourishing with life even in the dead of the growing season. He is the great haunt, her the little bear, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor in their relentless wandering through the northern skies.

"Confrontation is not new to them. We will work together. But this waiting only threatens those captured." She narrows her eyes, staring up at the canopy. "Who knows better about being taken by a more powerful being than I do, Piotr? Captain America is many, many things. Strong, good, noble. He would give himself up in a moment to keep Earth safe. That is why waiting is too costly. They might not see it." Her shoulders make a sharp line, a certain resolution sizzling away with a nerve being struck.

But there's circling around to drop a protest. "Alexis is together with Sam Guthrie. Cannonball. Bean, he is different. I am still trying to work him out. Dangerous but trying to find his normal?" It's a guess, but better to know that front. "Shannon understands him better. His technopathy must make the world noisy. Imagine having that signal all the time."

No thank you! WiFi signals in the brain are bad enough for psychis, much less the city broadcasting everything. But that's the guttured note of reflection. When they come to the mirror of reflection, her in black obsidian and him in that pure, pristine steel? Nothing that could ever tarnish. And she is doused in flames.

An old argument. Not old enough. Her eyes aren't white anymore, nor the deep tranquil blue of his. They have a lighter shade, those silly foil eyelashes framing them a sincere electric blue. "When will you know it is not your fault? It was a demon who took me. A Hell Lord." A Hell Lord that she, by rights, is. "You did all you could. Kitty, Ororo, Scott. They all tried their best. Do you think I blame you after all this time? It would be like cursing the moon. My sins are inscribed on my soul. It is I who lost to him, and my hour will come. I plan to take back what is mine and then there will be no debt on your conscience. You'll see it when the amulet is in my hands. I will put that monster in his grave and destroy every last thread of his being for all time, so that no one else is hurt. But maybe we do it together, family bonding."

She allows the hug, she gives it right back. So small in comparison, but not especially frail. "He's not a boy, my volchonok." Wolf cub? "Douglas Ramsay. Gifted with reading the language of the world. All of them, down to the base code of reality. He does things with computer systems that maybe only Bean really gets. His family banished him, in a way, after he died. His resurrection causes them too much pain. Maybe it doesn't agree with their beliefs. They are a thing, a Mormon? I do not understand their book at all, what they mean." Orthodoxy in the Russian Federation is already complicated enough. It's much, much worse being the gateway drug for all the elder evils of the universe. "He knows how to laugh. So much knowledge about it in his head, like that Star Wars movie and music and all the rest. The corrupted side doesn't scare him so much. It should. He sees the pieces of Limbo I show them. The others. Sam, Berto, sometimes Lorna. Scott. It hasn't changed his opinion well. So he is clearly deranged, so that fits."

Colossus has posed:
    It is a hard ride for him to absorb all that she imparts to him, and she can see the way he carries it in those blue eyes. The way he follows along and nods at points. The way his lips purse or he nibbles upon the lower as she tells him of what she has endured. It is not that he did not know before, more that this interaction pushes it all to the fore...
    For how often does one conduct their lives simply trying to avoid thinking of the shadows that threaten one from the past?
    His hands tighten a little on her shoulders as he gains his feet when she speaks of her plans and what is to be done for the future. And she asks of him when will he ever not think of what passed as his fault? When will he not feel that blame.
    The answer is simple as he just tells her. "I must be as I am, Illyana. I am your brother." And in some ways... perhaps that answers many of the other facets of thoughts that had passed between them.
    Douglas comes up next, however. He smiles a little edged with something, but there is something else there. Some measure of... relief? As if he had envisioned a myriad of Lotharios that might have worked their way into Illyana's good graces. She can see him give it some thought, eyes distancing beyond her shoulder. And she needs not be a telepath to imagine that inner monologue of his thoughts.
    Could be worse.
    He is likely to value her.
    If anyone can understand her perhaps it is he?
    And then his lip twists a little as the final thought...
    He knows what would happen if he hurt her.
    But none of that is 'spoken' though likely inferred. He nods toward Illyana and murmurs, "Your life is your own, little snowflake. Though I will likely speak to him about this."

Magik has posed:
How often have they lived inside one another's lives? Where one hurts and the other is silent? Where the child hides from the wounds, and the adult must carry on?

A little growing then. Maybe she's a sapling able to hold out against a winter, but certainly not the axe. "You are my brother, Piotr, but I don't /like/ that you struggle with these thoughts. You never failed me. I am not dead." Her eyes drift to the side. "Not anymore. We know that has happened before and it will not come easily again without a fight. His shadow cannot reach you too." Belasco is the unspoken note of pure, incandescent hate. She is more than happy to beat the pulp out of his mere mention.

So it recedes back by the time Piotr's train of thought reaches the Siberian station. "It would be an ugly fight." Yes, she went there. "You are the scary one, da? I think he expects you to haul him behind the woodshed. Not my business how you conduct it. Anyone who dates you knows we are family, and that means your sister. She is, you know, not right." A swirl of her finger corkscrews just above her ear. "I'm trying to anchor my humanity. What parts are there. I talked to Doctor Strange about it. He claims not to be much of a teacher, but a doctor. He does not tolerate killing, nyet. I think humans rank highest on that, but we learn other methods. One day, that might be all we have."

Colossus has posed:
    He endures the conjuration of the memory of Belasco, it is discomfort and woe, but he endures as she speaks to him. Piotr nods, sliding his hands at first deep into the pockets of his heavy ski jacket, and frowns but accepts. He is not happy, but he will continue.
    Then Doug is brought back to the fore and Illyana mentions a woodshed he lifts a hand from one pocket and waves it to the side as if brushing off the notion. "Oh Illyana," Chiding her for thinking he would indeed take more... direct methods with Douglas.
    Yet he nods aboutt her needing to keep connection with her humanity. "I understand this, Illyana. I do. Just..." He looks aside toward the bundle of sticks left upon the ground and he steps over in that direction. Kneeling he gathers them again and starts to tuck them under one arm.
    "It is much like this, no? All of these things that we speak of... all of what we must deal with. At the least this..." He clenches the branches under his arm to signify, "This, I can handle."
    Then he turns and starts walking once again. "Douglas is much like that. He is real and here and something within my power to address. That is all."
    And with that he gestures for her to take his free hand. "Come, let us walk back and enjoy the snow together, sister." So they do.