13851/Gone Rogue

Gone Rogue
Date of Scene:	04 October 2021
Location:	Someplace high up and isolated with a good view - Westchester County
Synopsis:	Poor Rogue can't get peace to be antisocial in, dwelling on the past aside.
Cast of Characters:	Sinister, Rogue

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Sinister has posed:
It has been a while. And it's a grey day, to boot. Elsewhere in Westchester, the day's been mizzling on the ground, throwing that misty rain that just makes absolutely everything damp. October doesn't mess about in New York State, nor in neighbouring Conneticut. But sometimes, the view is good regardless of how grey -- there's gradients, where the sky looks like ancient marble, because of the varying shades. That blur of rain in the distance, those occasional slants of sunshine through the clouds and the glisten of roads below, wending through the woods and off toward the townships in the north of the state, on the way to Rochester.

In such weather, being high up and thinking about things can be therapeutic. Necessary even, to resettle or to set oneself apart... for whatever reason. Sinister is once again, in the position of Rodin's the Thinker, resting chin on knuckles and sat on air, high up. His shoulder ornamentation of the day is not his cloak, but his wings, held close and tight.

Rogue has posed:
Too many people have been bombarding the younger mutant with questions about whether or not she's keen on students being back at the school. For one, it's a stupid question to ask her in general. She spends ninety percent of her time cooped up in her bedroom unless she has to be actually doing her job. Thankfully, not many students get detention so she's not really ever busy. Secondly, she's notoriously anti-social except for with a handful of people, and half that handful graduated last year. One of them broke a promise. She can't stand having promises made to her broken in any fashion. It just sucks.

So queue the flighty wonder taking a chance on a Monday when the skies are grey, the grass is damp and she has no school duties to go off on her lonesome. No big surprise there. She's got a spot out in the mountains close enough to the school border she can go back if needed, but far enough out that no one will bother her. In a little knook of plateau that sticks out from the side, there may even be a small cave there, but there is also a chair, a fire pit, and a few other amenities that make the space cozy. It's here that Rogue sits, looking out over the landscape. Has she noticed the winged one? Probably not. But Sinister might be high enough that he can smell the smoke both from fire and cigarette as Rogue enjoys a cancer stick while sitting back in her lounge chair.

Sinister has posed:
Maybe a little smoke on the wind, maybe a little mind on the radar. The flavour of certain brains certainly alerts his focus; perhaps a marker when he's experienced time and senses in their presence sets a little red light over them in the general roar that can otherwise be a telepathic field. As it is, the little tickle of a familiar awareness in the otherwise mostly quiet of the vicinity where humans are outnumbered by critters and trees. He scans his mindscape, arches eyebrows a little, then glides down along a diagonal toward where she sits on the deckchair, as if on an invisible escalator along with his invisible chair.

He hovers abotu twenty foot up and to the side, watching her from his 'thinker' position, quietly. Just to see if she notices, perhaps.

Rogue has posed:
Another drag off that cigarette is taken while Rogue pulls out her cellphone and plays something on it. A thing that she finagled being able to snag from the Danger Room where she and another had made a mock prom night. The sound of her and one Jeremy Statton talking. Discussing life, relationships, and the future. There's even laughter from both of them and a look that will haunt her for forever now.

It's bad enough she lives with the memories of him inside her head because of an accident at the lake.

Her cigarette finished - at least this one anyway - she throws the butt into the fire before setting her phone aside. "You gonna just keep hoverin' over me like a weird stalker, or are you gonna come down and say hello?" She speaks, to seemingly no one. Except the one who is there.

Sinister has posed:
"Well, I thought I'd view you slantwise for a while longer, but if you -insist-..." Sinister can read the emotional memory as clear as day. It's hard not to think about things you're thinking about as you're thinking about them, after all. He floats on down, until he's sitting off the ledge on the thin air, beside her deck chair, tapping his temple. "Nostalgia - Pain of the past. You're a poster child for it at the moment, miss Rogue."

As she's smoking, he takes one up himself, from inside a leather jacket pocket. Cloves, for the sheer heck of it, the sweet smell lifts. "Good evening. Afternoon. Is it afternoon?"

Rogue has posed:
Rogue rolls her eyes. "That's not how you act around a lady. Didn't your parents teach you manners?" That Southern Belle Heat comes out of her mouth like a snake ready to strike at it's target. She's got venom in her tongue for the moment, but it's mostly induced from the stress and the heartbreak. "I dunno what you're talking about, and I'll thank you kindly for stayin' outta mah mind for a bit."

She strikes up another smoke and then sighs. "Afternoon probably. It is a time of day. Who really cares what that time is?"

Sinister has posed:
"I don't need to be a mindreader to see pain expressed, but I suppose it does help," Sinister replies, pressing his lips thin. The venom he'll take this time, as choice words do not seem prone to escape his control. He flicks ash to the breeze, stretches his legs out instead and gazes off at the road that wends partially invisible beneath the bluff.

"As to the care for chronology, well... it's afternoon somewhere. I believe that's quite a common excuse for day drinking, and an important aspect for punctuality. I however, do not have any place to be until later. You, miss Rogue, look as if you wish to be any place yesterday."

Rogue has posed:
"What's it matter to you anyway? You'll just give me a whole bunch of fancy words, a treatment at a spa, and then disappear for a while. Kidnap other mutants and make them think you got a better place in this world than anyone else." Oh yeah, Rogue hasn't forgotten that either. Though the way she's remembering it is probably a bit cloudy with signs of jade. She flicks ash herself and then takes a slow breath.

"And people wonder why I don't do social. The point of being social if everyone leaves ya in the end? What's the point of makin' or havin' friends if they just disappear on ya. Break promises. Ain't no fucking point..." She offers, then scoffs. "Hell I could probably disappear and wouldn't a single damn person notice."

Sinister has posed:
"Oh, I kidnapped someone that I'm not aware of?" Sinister muses on that, looking back at the memories of encounters. "Ohhh. The little runaway that didn't want to go home. Well, now. That's very interesting," he taps on his chin a few times, snorts softly and lets it simply run off his back. "ALthough I -am- capable of changing a person's mind for them, I generally speaking don't. I prefer to use words and let them do their own thinking. It's underrated." He shrugs lightly, blows a thin column of smoke upwards and considers a particularly dark and ominous cloud rolling off toward NYC. "I think that's going to be one hell of a storm, when it gets rolling." A thing that actually makes him smile. More ash is flicked and he glances sidelong to Rogue once again.

"I suspect you underestimate your compatriots. And aren't you a little young to be quite this jaded? You need to be at -least- fifty before you start down that road. Maybe even older. Those individuals that break their promises, generally weren't worth the effort, however. The human condition though, tends not to like being entirely solitary. It does things to the mind. But I'm not your clinician, I'm sure."

Rogue has posed:
"Suppose I'm pretty sure I'm a little young to be a lot of things, and yet I can also almost promise you I have been a lot of those things." Rogue quips back before shaking her head. Standing from her chair she moves to the ledge and looks over. It's a long fall. She'd catch herself because she can but there's a few people she'd like to toss over that ledge right now. "Seems just as soon as I let someone get close to me...something else comes and fucks it up. Leaves me with no one and nothing. So if I'm going to stuck here, might as well be on my lonesome."

There's a side eye given to Sinister as she sits on the ledge a few scooches over from him. "...I just didn't expect...not from him. He seemed like a really good guy. And...for the first time in a while...I was letting myself get close to someone. Now...it just all seems pointless..."

Sinister has posed:
"I sympathise. I spent a long time keeping my distance from a great many individuals. Clinical detachment. But I have found against all the odds, that occasionally it does in fact work out, even if there is pain along the way. Young men have a habit of being less than they ought to be. I think it's a flaw of the Y chromosome, but..." he shrugs, flicks more ash and considers the end of his cigarette, focusing on it, rather than her. He stretches his wings up high, a quiver and a shiver taking them, followed by a few beats to get themselves back in good vibes, folding them close to his back again afterwards.

"For what it's worth, I encountered a litter of your school's pups on the metro, caught up in a train hijacking and robbery. It never hit the news. You might want to speak to a couple of your older students regarding it, because at least a couple have very bad anger management issues and nobody thought about clean-up of the rather large number of civillian humans that witnessed a very dubious situation of mutants attacking people on that train. It also had a technopath on board, who I believe is currently a bit of a rogue element. His name was Theo. Thin fellow. He's out there."

Rogue has posed:
"Don't most people also spend a great deal of time staying away from you? Generally speaking." Ah the attempt to get a rise out of Sinister. Does she think it'll work? Probably. She's feeling a lot of a lot right now. Sadness is there, sure. As is pain. But she also just wants to beat the living shit out of something - she just can't because of her super human strength. The punching bags in the gym at the house don't really satisfy her either.

At that run down of a recent time Sinister was in the presence of mutants from the school, she looks to him. A raised brow given and then she nods her head. "I believe those kids were taken care of, cause once they got back to the school some of them didn't quite shut up about it..." A pause. "I figured the technopath stopped anything from being transmitted but..." She shrugs.

Even talking about a technopath has her looking and sounding a bit more defeated than in other statements. To the point that she stands and walks back to her chair to flop down into it.

Sinister has posed:
"Most, yes," Sinister actually chummily agrees, even offering an annoyingly happy looking smile. It's as if he likes that status quo and perhaps he does. "And yet, I keep bumping into people. It's quite a thing. Lately, I've been positively chummy." He gazes at her a few long moments, finishes his cigarette and pinches it out, flicking it off and over the ledge. Litterbug, but it's biodegradable and snuffed, at least.

There is no offer to be a chimera mutant punching bag. He's not quite THAT charitable.

"No, the technopath didn't do anything of that ilk. He was too busy trying to chase after myself. I ended up cornering him and demanding to know why he was following me, which was an eye-opener." Though he doesn't say it, there's that suspicion he had a hand in the quiet of that event. "You really are quite a conundrum, you know. Oh well."

Rogue has posed:
"Theres a million other ledges out there you can go to so you don't have to deal with a difficult person like me." Rogue offers at the end of all that Sinister says. She came out here to be alone anyway. To wallow in herself. Allow herself the moment needed to let everything out, get over it all. She doesn't do that around others, she doesn't do it well with herself but she tries. "Still, thank you for stopping anything from going out to the media... that would have been...unpleasent to deal with." There.

She doesn't say much more, and instead flicks her finished cigarette into the fire and reaches for her cooler to pull out a soda. "Would you like a drink?"

Sinister has posed:
Sinister glances off to the distance once again. "True that. But then I wouldn't be able to have a conversation with you, now would I?" Sin replies this again, in that annoyingly chipper tone of voice. He gives a nod though, looking back over at her when she offers gratitude. Just a nod. He considers the soda, then pulls out a bottle of whiskey; a glenlivet, rather than glenfiddig and with a flourish of wrist, pulls a glass out of his own palm, setting it down to fill the cup. "If you have something coca-cola related and don't mind me mutilating one of your cans, I'm happy to share. They do say you shouldn't drink and fly, but I'm a rebel, I tell you."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue blinks, watching him produce both whiskey and a glass before she reaches and grabs another soda can. Then, she shifts from her chair and moves towards him again. "I have Pepsi, which is far superior. You're going to share some of that whiskey right?" Asking this much as she reaches with one of the cans, offering it to Sinister while eying that whiskey with a smirk. "I think I appreciate you talking to me. Cause you don't really talk at me, and you don't try to pat my head and be all it gets better. Im so sorry.." Those last two sentences said in a mocked voice. "People are so fucking fake."

Sinister has posed:
"Recently, I've been priding myself on my honesty. It's a novel and interesting experience, but Sinster nods, pouring a half glass of the pepsi into the container he made out of himself, then pouring the rest into thin air where it hovers. With a little twisting gesture, he shears the top of the can clean off, then with another gesture, flattens it out and extrudes it. Such is easy with aluminIUM -- editor rebellion -- and so that flattened out piece is folded hard over the sharp edge of the can, to make a cup with a smoother edge so lips don't get lacerated; rolled down twice and thicker, y'see. The floating pepsi is deposited back in the cup and he hands it out, nodding idly to the whiskey bottle.

"Life can suck stupendously, people are ignorant and often selfish, even when they don't really mean to be. The younger they are, the more egocentric the universe is to them. But there are upsides. Take them when you find them, you never know when the next one will come along."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue watches what he does with the soda can and then tilts her head in a curious fashion. As he makes it into a cup, she chuckles and gives a nod of her head. "There's a contraption that does that. It cuts off the top in a circular fashion but it also bends the tin over so that it's not a sharp edge. Pretty clever..." She says this much while taking the pepsi back and then grabs the whiskey, pouring a decent two or three fingers in before drinking half the can down. "Oh man... that's smooth."

As he talks about life sucking and ignorant people, she nods again but goes tremendously quiet. Not saying mych of anything at that point, she simply sips her drink and stares out into the misty clouds beyond. An idle glance over to NYC where one can see the lightning strikes coming from those darker clouds. "I need to talk to Storm. See if she wouldn't mind conjuring up a nice one over the school soon."

Sinister has posed:
"My lover will likely be out and about in it, or playing insanely good piano music in a gothic manner," Sinister observes, looking to the south and east, smiling at the sight of lightning strikes. "A bit of toccata and fugue, or beethoven on a night like that. Incidentally, never try a storms a'brewin'. It's a very strange cocktail, even if you're playing 'weather themed drinks'. Kahlua, lime and rum is all kinds of odd."

He tosses back half of his whiskey pepsi, smacking lips light at the sweet against the bitter fire. "How is the weather witch? She was quite intriguing the last time I saw her."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue blinks, finishes her drink, and then blinks again. "Lover?" She asks, glancing over to him and then she scoffs. "And here I thought that just maybe the world spat someone like me into my lap. Someone who wouldn't or couldn't love another for whatever reason. You, because of your wife, and me because...well.." She makes a gesture. "And yet..." And yet, but she doesn't finish it. The thought can finish itself she thinks.

"Storm's fine." She offers. "I think I'm going to go curl up in my cave for a little while." Saying this as she stands, begins to sweep sand over the fire with a foot to put it out. "Don't fall when you fly away, hm?" ...Nerve stuck it would seem.

Sinister has posed:
"Sometimes these things just happen, whether you want them to or not." Nothing else offered by Sinister, he finishes off his whiskey pepsi and leaves the bottle where it is. Maybe she'll take it, maybe it'll bake in the sun when tomorrow comes. Either way, he spreads his wings, crouches and leaps downbeats fwooshing wind before speed has him rocketting cityward.