15763/We're going to accomplish grand things together

We're going to accomplish grand things together
Date of Scene:	03 November 2023
Location:	Long Island - Brookville - The Ashforth Estate
Synopsis:	Investigating the case of the spontaneously appearing heir to an old money fortune turns into beseeching the legendary mutant freedom fighter Mystique for aid.
Cast of Characters:	Mystique, Magik

---

Mystique has posed:
Archie Rittenhouse Ashforth, Sr., never wanted for anything in life. The Ashforths were old money back when America was still young and vibrant and conquering the country, one stretch of territory at a time. 'Real estate' is the comfortable, pleasant way of describing the historical family business. While they've diversified their portfolio a good deal since the good old days, these land barons still controlled an untoward amount of property under their family name. Close to a million acres of United States land is Ashforth land.

Despite that long, venerable line of exploitation and greed, however, Archie Rittenhouse Ashforth, Sr., never had an heir to call his own, as far as the public knew. A consummate bachelor, many assumed that Archie would be one of those late-in-life, absentee father, leaving another spoiled spawn in his wake with little to no oversight before his death -- or, perhaps his extended family would get lucky, and the Ashforth name and all its land would fall to them when he passed.

Archie got older; he retired from the family business but retained control of the properties; claimed a pretty new trophy wife for his twilight years; no one was surprised.

Archie and his new wife - Andrea Kohl Merv - died in a tragic - depending on your definition - crash when out flying on his Piper Malibu aircraft; there were mild murmurings of thoughts and prayers.

Archie's video will left all Ashforth property to his heretofore unknown son, Archie Rittenhouse, Jr.; the shock and outrage could be felt and seen from miles around in the world of the upper crust.

It was a complete shock to the Ashforth family. Many believed it to be some elaborate hoax - demanded some proof. Archie Junior was happy to provide, and when the DNA tests came back positive five different times from five different labs, two of whom were in the Ashforth's pocket as insurance, there was still shock and outrage; it was just largely the impotent kind.

In the end, Archie Junior, spitting image of his father and probably possessed of some fine traits of his mystery mother, inherited his father's estate, and started gradually gifting away their property to various causes, groups and individuals with little rhyme or reason to be found for it as he lived a secluded life in the family estate off the Long Island coast.

And why, do you ask, do we lead our story with this strange and vaguely satisfying legend from the lives of the rich and famous?

That'd be because of the setting today, of course.
<br>A LOVELY MORNING AT THE ASHFORTH ESTATE,

an isolated but cozy chunk of acreage \</span\>carved out the upscale stretch of Long Island known as Brookville. Even by Brookville's standards, the Ashforth estate is rich-blooded -- rich enough that it has completely enclosed its sizable property completely from the rest of the village, enclosed in a rich wealth of forestry and a very big, very guarded gate that surrounds the entirety of its perimeter. Several houses make up the estate, most of them two story affairs, all of them having a more modernist take on an Old World brick house, all polished hardwood floors made of species of tree that won't be long for this Earth much longer and mind-numbingly off-white walls and ceilings. Ashforth could be an entire community unto itself.

But right now, it exists only for one person, and one person alone:

The individual calling themselves "Archie Rittenhouse Ashforth (Junior)."

The master of this house is often out. No one really knows much about Archie Junior -- by this point, the extended family have given up trying to reach out to or attack him, because the man is like teflon: impossible to pin down. But wherever he goes, he always returns to the Ashforth Estate in time to ensure and dismay the greater community with the fact that he still lives.

That's the case this weekend, where Archie Junior has only just arrived from one of his countless unplanned and deeply undocumented trips to god knows where. "A weekend stay in my ancestral home felt like the ap\<span style="color:xterm196"\>propri\</span\>

Mystique has posed:
That's the case this weekend, where Archie Junior has only just arrived from one of his countless unplanned and deeply undocumented trips to god knows where. "A weekend stay in my ancestral home felt like the appropriate thing this time of year," he explained. After all -- it's the anniversary of his father's death.

Why not celebrate a little?

Archie Junior is early to rise today; the birds are still singing their cheerful songs in the forest surrounding Ashforth as he stretches to wakefulness in his spacious, accommodating bed, drenched in sheets of Egyptian cotton. He checks his phone; he checks in with security working the perimeter of the Estate; he takes a shower, brushes his teeth, considers shaving (he decides against it; the five o'clock shadow looks just right); he goes for his morning jog; he admires nature for a good five minutes before retreating back to his house, having done his part for the environment.

And now? Now, the man just enjoys his day in lazy leisure, settled into the spacious comforts of his breakfast nook, a plate of roasted oysters topped with wagyu steak and quail eggs, flecked in edible gold, resting just outside his reach as he unfolds a very real, very physical newspaper and indulges in the events of the day. He's a tall man, around six foot two; his short black hair is speckled gray at the sides, cultivating a silver fox sort of look that only men with jaws that square and eyes that vividly blue can -really- pull off, if you ask anyone from this community.

He snorts softly as he thumbs through his newspaper, and otherwise, just enjoys his day. Another WASP in a sea of them, seemingly oblivious to the outside world.

Sometimes, it's nice to play a part. Mystique quite enjoys it.

Why go through the trouble of establishing safehouses if you can't have some fun with it, after all?$r

Magik has posed:
The idle rich would practically be a species unto themselves, had the butterfly flapped one more -- or less? -- time. If a bald, old money scion with eyes too kind to say no to hadn't come for her brother--

If she hadn't vacationed on the other side of the world from her family's frozen farm--

If she'd never stumbled into being raised by self-styled royalty, the very idea of a person with the means to spin a comfortable world around themselves and populate it primarily with people who exist to tend to their needs would be the stuff of fairy tales; a creature like Archie Rittenhouse Asforth Jr., a cautionary tale about a silver-haired demon who owned enough for ten, twenty, a hundred families, and hoarded it all for himself.

Instead, Illyana Rasputina is blessed with the knowledge that somewhere beneath the Things, the stories, the lies they swaddle themselves in to keep the harsh chill of reality at bay are people as small, as desperate as anyone else. As prone to irrational fear and sacrificing on its altar as anyone-- as hungry for security as the lowliest peasant, distinguished mainly by the vastly expanded means by which they may seek to acquire it. Somewhere along the way, Ashford money began trickling into the coffers of those who saw themselves as preparing for the war to come Man-Mutant war to come-- and whether it came directly from the source, or was diverted by a rogue agent bold enough to put someone else's money where their convictions lie, the one thing it absolutely, conclusively is not is a surprise for the X-Woman who has, in recent months, developed an interest in the green threads that bind mutant exploitation and extermination.

Where else would a rich man's money be, if not invested in securing his own existence?

What does surprise her is Archie Sr.'s sudden death, followed by Archie Jr.'s sudden windfall. Despite their soap operatic quality, tragic deaths and previously unknown bastard children are simply facts of life at a certain socioeconomic stratum-- the kinds of oddities with a way of finding people who live their lives in frequent, lavishly appointed motion despite rarely going much of anywhere. Where Archie Sr.'s peers saw a story neat enough to be mollified by until the next thing caught their attention, Illyana saw a web of coincidences waiting to be tugged at; distorted.

Worst case scenario, she winds up with a rich grifter in her back pocket, desperate to have his secret protected; best case, his strangely shallow documentation is a sign that he's something more.

Mystique and her morning paper are interrupted by a scintillating slice of thin reality insinuating itself into the breakfast nook long enough for a woman with blunt blonde bangs and a black leather attire to step free and slide into a seat across from Archie Jr. Metal and flesh fingers knit together atop the table; arctic blue eyes sweep upwards until they're set on their vivid opposites.

"Nobody's watching you," she then muses before gesturing, briefly towards gold-flecked food. "So who are you showing off for? The help?"

Mystique has posed:
There's a certain truth about intuition. It's an instinctual thing. Experience is the master of our genetics; survive enough hardships and horrors and eventually you'll see their forms before they fully manifest, like a dog whimpering before the storm's even managed its first, trembling thunderclap.

Call it foresight. Call it pattern recognition. Irene always called it fool's foresight -- she was always fond of that one.

Regardless...

"Archie Jr." feels the little hairs at the at the back of his neck stand on end in those rapidly dwindling seconds before his reality is sundered by a sizzling slice of stepping disc. Bright blue eyes narrow. His jaw sets.

There is the subtlest bulge of his left forearm against the white fabric of his shirt sleeve as that hand abandons its place at the paper to settle on his thigh, just beneath the cover of the table.

A second later, space and time and everything that you might consider substance splits open in front of Mr. Ashforth. His lips twist into a brief, irritated sneer.

"Tt."

Teleporters. Eternally a nuisance to those who simply want to hide in luxury.

The lack of headache-inducing sounds or a stench of rotting eggs drenching the sanctity of this excessively-appointed breakfast nook gives the person wearing the guise of an old money tyrant some idea of who is -not- gracing him with their presence today. By the time blunt blonde bangs emerge from that sliver-step between worlds, the portrait of Ashforth's mystery guest has basically painted itself. By the time Illyana Rasputina settles into her seat, that sneer of annoyance has vanished, leaving Archie Rittenhouse Ashforth Jr. a picture of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant perfection, looking mildly put upon that his morning routine has been perturbed by an unscheduled guest drenched in -leather- of all things on this fine Fall day. He peels to the next page of his paper as she sits, a paragon of calm confidence. His eyes scarcely look up from his paper.

But his left hand has never once inched away from its hidden spot beneath the table.

Who is she showing off for?

"You could have just walked up to the front gate, you know," remarks 'Archie Jr.,' his voice a rich baritone uncomplicated by any of life's hardships that anyone beneath his weight class could ever relate to. "So why drop in like this?"

He folds that paper one-handed, pouring over stock reports.

"Because you can. Because it's your right to. Because what's the point of being unbound by their rules if you can't enjoy the fruits?"

A little "tsk" slips from his lips.

"Questions like that show just how green those pretty horns of yours are, dear; I'd refrain from now on."

And it's bright, solid yellow eyes, not vivid blues that meet the arctic pair across the way as Raven sets that paper down, and presses an index finger against the edge of that plate.

The sound of it scraping across glass and wood fills the void of silence until that grossly indulgent meal is inches from Illyana, utensils and all.

"Maybe you should give it a try. Taste a little of the fat of life; you already look far too lean as it is."

Somehow voice and tone combine in a single horrifically perfect way to make those words sound simultaneously paternalistic and maternalistic.

"So, what brings Xavier's blondest attack dog barking at my front door?"

Magik has posed:
"You're chewing on gold because you apparently forgot that the whole point of those kinds of indulgences," wafts over, around, through the scraping of china over wood, "is signaling." Illyana's eyes don't budge, remaining fixed on yolk-hued eyes as one leg crosses the other beneath the table.

"And I went from wherever I was to sitting in your--"

She smirks, thinly.

"'Your'," she corrects, fingers and all, "breakfast nook because I didn't feel like walking up your driveway like some sad solicitor." Rather than fall back to the table, Illyana shifts from punctuating gestures to picking flecks of gold from the plate now before her, flicking them to the table and floor without a care for decorum. It's not like it's her safehouse, after all-- nor will either of them be on the hook for cleaning up, more than likely. Being able to pay for that sort of thing is just another luxury to be savored.

"While you're gorging on their fruits," she muses, holding a gold-flecked thumb towards Raven for a beat, "why not make sure you're getting the sweetest of the bunch?" With a black-tipped index finger, she flicks golden debris away so she can resume picking one of those oysters clean.

"There's no sin or naivete in wanting the best-- nor in refusing to content oneself with shallow, brittle facsimiles of such."

A final dusting of gold flutters towards the floor as Illyana finally plucks a wagyu-topped oyster from the plate and pops it into her mouth. Folding her hands atop the table, she chews and eventually swallows without another word, a sound-- just cold eyes studying the subject of a dangerously thick dossier.

"I'm here," she lowly utters after swallowing, "because I was hoping to get lucky: your story added up in all the wrong ways, so I figured either you were exactly what you looked like - some clever grifter who managed to secure a healthy bag for himself - or something... else. A Mastermind, maybe-- the old man, if the universe was feeling particularly funny. The former, I would've made into a piggy bank; the latter, well... you know how they can get. Especially the old man..."

The demon queen begins picking at another gold-dusted heap, lowering her eyes to the plate as she does so.

"Instead," she evenly continues, "I find you, indulging yourself."

"My lucky morning," she adds while flicking more gold to the table, "pointless ostentation aside. You, I can work with-- and it has nothing to do with the Professor."

Mystique has posed:
You're chewing on gold because you apparently forgot that the whole point of those kinds of indulgences... is signaling.

"Hah," exhales from thin lips, 'Archie' shakes his head.

"The importance isn't the signal. It's the ritual."

One leg folds over the other, hooking at the knee. It's a more feminine pose for a man of Archie Jr.'s stature and silhouette, but the eerie part if how fluidly and seamlessly he pulls it off. Eyes yellow as a child's doodled sun watch watch with half-lidded ambivalence as Illyana flicks flecks away from her freshly-gifted plate. They track where each fleck falls, even as 'Archie' continues.

"Do you think people like the Ashforths care whether or not people like - well, you - know how they eat their meals? What they put in their baths? The unnecessary holistic frills added to their medications?" That right hand waves through the air, in perfectly opulent dismissal. "At best, you're a brief diversion in their train of thought as they meander through the news of the day. I'm sure dear Charles could let you know all the sordid things his family has done without even a single peek from the impoverished while they do it. Maybe you should ask him sometime."

'Archie' lifts a single, dark brow. "Or maybe you can attend an average meeting of the Hellfire Club, if you're not feeling quite so spicy."

Ultimately, broad shoulders roll in a dismissive shrug. Solid yellow eyes continue to track the loss of gold, one fragment at a time.

"No. It's the knowledge that this is yours, that it enriches you and only you. It's the tingly feeling of knowing even passingly how rare gold truly is, and the fact that someone is rolling out a sheet of it, purified and hammered out, to be broken down into exactly the right amount that it can sit comfortably and uselessly in your gut and be shit out the next day. It's all part of the ritual, dear. The ludicrous ritual of indulgence that every day solidifies a difference between you, and them."

Illyana flicks that fleck of hold off her hand. And 'Archie's' right hand snaps out, to snatch it before it can fall to the ground.

"And with just the slightest tweaks, now it's mine, nor theirs."

And without so much as a blink, tosses that useless fragment of gold into his waiting mouth.

"We all have our ways of cementing our superiority. Like, for example, ignoring the laws of time and space to make an entrance, so as to be less common." 'Archie's' smile is one of those cold things that don't quite reach the eyes.

"There's no sin in that at all, dorogaya."

The mutant masquerading as something much worse doesn't seem overly concerned about Illyana's presence, or the way those glacier-cold blue eyes fixate on him. But Mystique is, first and foremost, a liar. Deceit comes as easily to her as those blunt bangs do to Illyana: some things are just meant to be. For all his ambivalence, there is the subtlest tension in 'Archie's' bearing. A certain readiness, as the Queen of Limbo winds about to the reason for this impromptu meeting. His back is straight. His right hand is on the table, discreetly braced.

His left remains hidden under the table, fingers wrapped comfortably around something.

The metamorph listens. And as he listens, his fingers curl a little more tightly beneath the table.

Despite the unremarked on tension of the moment, 'Archie' still manages to off-handedly comment, "Don't get me started on Mastermind,"

before Illyana's eyes finally drop, and she addresses the shapeshifting elephant in the room directly.

Yellow eyes blink. Dark brows furrow. 'Archie' considers Illyana with quiet incredulity for a few precious seconds in which it is unclear if suspicion might give way to violence or some other, possibly explosive, exit strategy.

And then one corner of those thin lips quirks up. And not a second later, 'Archie Jr.' is laughing a deep, short, richly entertained laugh...

"The dog's off the leash, is she? Good for you," says Archie in the aftermath of that laugh. "In that case... my staff," my, she says

Mystique has posed:
"The dog's off the leash, is she? Good for you," says Archie in the aftermath of that laugh. "In that case... my staff," my, she says, pointedly not in quotes, "know not to disturb me unless I call for them. This little nook is a nice slice of privacy, off the monitors. So..."

A soft shimmer. Over-tanned, middle-aged flesh ripples like a disturbed lake surface. The deep, masculine voice of Archie Rittenhouse Ashforth Jr. grows more feminine and husky with every passing syllable.

"... let's get more comfortable."

... until it is simply Mystique in all her blue-skinned, free of (obvious) facade. Her scarlet red hair is worn fashioned into a short side-cut for today, bright bangs falling across her left eye as she considers Illyana.

She's still wearing Archie's white button-up, top four buttons undone, and slate gray slacks. Maybe the clothes were real.

Maybe she just thinks she looks good in them.

"So, you -are- a solicitor today," remarks in dry amusement. Blood red lips twitch up at their corners. "Let's see if it's a sad one. What's your pitch, dorogaya?"

Her left hand remains under the table.

Magik has posed:
"I think it's infinitely more pathetic that they'd subject themselves to gilded mediocrity just to feel special," Illyana succinctly replies.

"All the money in the world-- money enough to afford sheets of pure gold hammered out and shredded into flakes--"

Like the one Archie catches, earning a flick of blue eyes.

"-- all so they can carry on pretending to be what they wish they were -- what they're trying, desperately, to convince themselves they were born to be:"

The tiniest swirling white disc opens between Archie's fingers and mouth. It swallows a fluttering piece of gold, carrying it through Elsewhere until it arrives through another tiny rift in reality, right above Illyana's outstretched thumb.

"Special," she concludes as paper-thin gold settles against the pad of her thumb.

Illyana doesn't bother smiling back. She doesn't make any particular show of having reappropriated that shiny little flake, either; she simply explains herself until one layer of deception ripples and melts away, hardening into the deep blue form of Raven Darkholme.

"Magneto has gone soft," she then states. "He has his project in Genosha; I don't begrudge that, but I'm not terribly interested in it, or the responsible statesman it's made of him, either. The Professor is the Professor: principled, willful, and entirely too stubborn to ever succeed in a world that builds think tanks dedicated to our exploitation and extermination. We live in a time of relative calm, and I believe that - as long as things are as they are now - that is entirely to our mutual enemies' advantage."

She pauses, then-- less for breath, more for absorption.

Less to gather herself, more to indulgently seize a little space for herself -- to lean across the table and capture Mystique's collar between two free fingers.

"I think it's time they be reminded of why they fear us," she suggests, low and deliberate as she strokes past empty button-holes. "I think that it's time that the rest of Humanity learn why they should hate and fear the madness that lurks in the darkest, most rotten reaches of their collective psyche more than us..."

Illyana's eyes drift from impossibly sunny eyes, roving over fabric real enough to be touched as she tries to graze a couple fingers over Mystique's collarbone.

"... and I think that a revived, reenergized Mutant Liberation Front could be just the wild, cleansing fire needed to accomplish these goals," is softly, firmly stated and capped with renewed eye contact.

Mystique has posed:
"It's a pretension that requires active effort to disabuse, dear. Otherwise, it's simply the reality of complacency."

'Archie' lifts one brow, looking sidelong at Illyana before tossing that flake mouthwards.

"I'm doing -my- part. What about you?"

That piece of gold never even so much as touches the bed of that waiting tongue, though, before a sliver of sundering spacetime parts the tiniest veil of reality and yoinks that flake from his - her - fingers.

'Archie' regards Illyana with narrowed eyes of the mildest irritation at being denied something she wants.

In this much, Mystique and the gentry -do- have something in common.

Eventually, though, the mutant masquerade dissolves away as Illyana offers up her sales pitch to her expectant host and prospective ally. Eventually, the Queen of Limbo crosses the distance between her and the woman of a thousand faces until the expensive fabric of that shirt is seized, pinched between two fingers.

Eventually, Raven Darkholme leans into that touch, crossing the table's threshold until that wealth of exposed blue skin is Illyana Rasputina's whole world, and the edge of silken scarlet hair is her cheekbone's newest friend.

She smells of smoke and bourbon. Spiced with a secret splash of warm cinnamon.

"So, you want more than the pretty, placid walled gardens of old men."

Illyana's gaze drifts back towards yellow as bright as the gold on the demon queen's thumb. It lasts only a handful of seconds before blue fingers are seizing the fingers grazing that graceful collarbone...

Until Mystique is ducking in to whisper warm words at just the right volume to tickle the tiniest hairs of Illyana's ear.

"How greedy of you, dorogaya."

Suffused with the tingly pleasure of approval.

The pad of a blue thumb crests the inside of Illyana's wrist, as Mystique's sinfully sweet words continue to pour into her ear.

"I love a woman with a plan, you know. And I like the sound of this bold new direction Charles' hound is taking, chewing off her own leash. It's very..." She exhales a heated sigh here, puffed with pointed relaxation across Illyana's ear. "... refreshing."

A second's poignant pause passes. Mystique shifts, half-buttoned shirt hanging loose off her shoulders. "... But the Mutant Liberation Front has always been synonymous with patsies. Dupes, to be exploited. Is that the poisoned well you want to tempt me with? Am I to be your cat's-paw, Rasputina?"

By now, the gentle pressure of a gun barrel against Illyana's midsection can be felt, a steel-cold contrast to the warm sweetness of Raven's voice.

"I do hope you have something to sweeten the pot for me."

Magik has posed:
"I want for the people I care for to live where they like," Illyana answers, low and breathy as she's inundated with warm cinnamon and bourbon, "without any fear for what tomorrow might bring -- whether it's in a walled garden, or elsewhere."

For a woman who is apparently disinterested in being bound, she takes the capture of her wrist awfully well: no twisting or tugging; no sounds of dismay, or even a hitch in her voice or breathing. Like it's just a part of the dance between predators old and young, an escalation of the implicit threats that weave together in the underpinnings of the two mutants' conversation.

"Why should any of us be shackled to the dreams of great men?"

A pause blooms between them for all of a second. Mystique shifts and so does Magik, pushing against the other mutant's hand just enough to give the expensive fabric draped around and framing the bold azure of her shoulder a nudge with her fingertips--

And then there is a gun barrel pressed against the pale expanse of her midsection, stamping an impression of its outline into her flesh. Blue eyes shift downwards for another lingering beat.

Pointed black nails whisper against Mystique's arm as the Queen of Limbo tries to help that semi-buttoned shirt do what it so clearly wants to.

"Unlike the sad, small creature you've donned to seize the Ashforth fortune," she finally utters, low and resolute, "I don't have much of a taste for pretensions, or illusions of unearned superiority. I am not a glittering ego clad in blades and malice; I am neither a destructive impulse nor self-appointed savior, and most of all: I am not content to be bound by patterns that do not suit me. Others used that name and the promise it represents to cast themselves as golden calves before the desperate and vicious..."

Whatever she says next as her eyes return to Mystique's sends a reverberant chill thrumming through the air, each of its eldritch syllables falling from her lips like drops of lead.

"... but I think that we can do better than that," lowly follows after a measured exhale.

"I think," Illyana continues, extending her gold-flecked thumb towards Mystique until it hovers just inches from her lips, "that the Mutant Liberation Front could serve a purpose beyond being a cautionary tale for those who dream too big."

This close, a faint and wholly unnatural patina shimmers across the gilded condiment's surface-- which now tastes distinctly of cherry flower honey.

"And I think that there's a part of you which would greatly enjoy the idea of drowning the most tedious, hateful parts of humanity in a well-- poisoned, or otherwise," the queen of Hell carefully posits. "More that idling in luxury on the sidelines, certainly.

"Zoloste," she concludes with a slight head-tilt.

Mystique has posed:
I want for the people I care for to live where they like, without fear for what tomorrow might bring

"What a sweet sentiment," Mystique coos, voice succulent and silvery.

"I wonder if they'll be willing to appreciate how much blood you'll drench those pretty little hands with for them."

Cylindrical steel presses against pallid flesh, firm enough to let Illyana feel the way it drags upwards along the contours of her abdomen slowly, oh-so-explicitly slowly, until it is resting just underneath the left side of her ribcage, angled upwards just so. It does little to lessen the throaty purr of Mystique's voice; it only underscores it all the more dramatically.

"So," she continues. "You're paving your own little road to hell for the sake of others. It should be well-tread ground for -you- at least, yes?"

A pale hand pulls against its deep blue counterpart; soft, smooth, strong fingers clench just strong enough to make every inch of ground Illyana purches with the nudge of those black-lacquered nails sting exquisitely as she conspires with gravity to make the loose drape of that shirt slope off and down one elegant shoulder, exposing the blue flesh beneath.

The fabric must be real, with how it bundles up so generously around the crook of Mystique's elbow as she speaks.

"You have a bold dream, and you paint it so captivatingly..." she begins, but those words trail as she hears - /feels/ - the mystic reverb of a rare language she /doesn't/ know, and yet can identify all too well, spilling its supernatural syllables off the tip of Illyana's tongue. Drawn close to the blonde's ear, the way those scarlet brows knit inward in cautious distrust is still a subtle thing; the way the barrel of her gun bites against Illyana's ribcage, less so. A blue index finger hovers near the trigger.

The pressure eases, fractionally, after the third second of nothing overtly magical attempting to assault her. She continues, with only the faintest hint of guarded edge to her voice:

"... But I've already given the mutant cause all the pounds of flesh I care for. Eventually, dorogaya, you come to learn that you will strip yourself down to the bone for them, and they will still starve for more. Eventually, you come to learn that need to carve off some pounds for yourself if you are going to keep fighting."

She frames herself a cautionary casualty of caring too much for the cause too well; her words come smooth as silk, dusting the pale skin of Illyana's cheekbone with a tone that -sounds- as sincere as it does tantalizing as she draws back.

Molten-bright eyes focus on that gold flake. Illyana will only be able to tell by that ephemeral feeling of another person's attentions on you, how that solid yellow drifts from the gilded garnish to her for a pregnant handful of seconds. She sees the shimmer. She can smell the sweetness. A smile like a challenge touches her lips, her gun remaining as she leans forward.

"I have a list of about... thirteen people, places. Close enough, at least, for my liking. They all have things that belong to me. I want you to help me get them back. And make sure the people who took them pay for the gall."

What are those things? Mystique doesn't elaborate, as her head dips.

"Do that for me..."

As blood red lips part around Illyana's thumb and engulf it, catching that flake against the pin of a single, sharp canine that pinches just so into the pad of Illyana's thumb, letting her feel its stinging journey across that multitude cluster of nerve endings as it sucks that honey-sweet, shimmering flake off that digit.

"... and I'm yours. Your proud soldier of Mutant Liberation."

Magik has posed:
I wonder if they'll be willing to appreciate how much blood you'll drench those pretty little hands with...

Kitty - her best friend and most frequent confidant - was closer to resigned, when Illyana told her-- as if she knew the damage would be done one way or another, and there was no logical reason to fight it--

As if she knew, somewhere beyond the stubborn hope and disapproval, that the damage had been done-- that this was simply the most appropriate outlet for her former roomie's bloody shadow.

Ororo - the reflection of her one-time mentor who she looks to for truth and stability - was more accepting, but ultimately reserved in offering any particular judgment or opinion on the matter at all-- as if she wanted to let Illyana succeed or stumble on her own.

These, she has since reasoned, are best case scenarios: she could hardly imagine Scott or the Professor taking a flat-faced declaration of war against a subset of the human species well, after all.

As pique curls her lips, abdominal contours reflexively tighten beneath a trawling gun barrel, presenting the shapeshifter with a bumpy ride to her rib cage. Rather than answer the jabs Mystique so casually, callously directs her way, Illyana focuses on not just maintaining eye contact with the blue-skinned mercenary, but swallowing whatever traces of dismay which threaten to spill out, reinforcing her unconcerned demeanor.

When the time comes for sweet, shiny offerings and sharp canines, Illyana allows a swift, sharp intake of air, exhaling in time with the tooth's journey along her skin.

"The witching number," she sighs in its wake, quirking a brow and canting her head just so. "You understand that if I help you - if we retrieve these thirteen things, together - we'll be bound to one another..."

The rest of her remains porcelain-still, but there's a twinkle in her eyes as she says it.

As the hand that isn't still stinging, sweetly, glides beneath the table.

"... don't you?" she wonders as she attempts to tuck the edge of her hand against the barrel, so that it may be guided up and away from her.

Mystique has posed:
It's a good look, that steadfast disinterest. Mystique knows its kind.

It's the look of someone who has had years of practice feigning apathy, because the alternative is so much worse.

Mystique's lips pop at the end of her journey along Illyana's thumb, the sound light and wet. The trace of that enchanted gold flake can be seen on the bed of her tongue before red lips slip shut. She takes her time to savor the sweetness of it on the buds of her tongue, sweetness it never had before beyond the sweetness of its absurd, ritualistic significance as she listens to the sigh of Illyana Rasputina's answer.

- if we retrieve these thirteen things, together -

"Or close enough for my liking." The blue-skinned metamorph interjects her echo with a coy smile and a coyer tone.

But she listens, too. If they do this... they'll be bound together, says Illyana.

A hand rests against the barrel of her gun, and Raven can feel the weight of it by proxy. Short, scarlet-red hair rustles as the shapeshifter leans back, providing just enough resistance to Illyana's grip to cause a stalemate of mutual force and counter-force.

She waits, for a few seconds after she's taken that gold flake, as if waiting for something to happen or not.

... And it's only then that the pressure eases piecemeal, one fractional newton of force at a time, as Mystique leans forward once more, right arm hanging by her side loose enough to let her crumpled sleeve pool at her wrist, and shirt half-hang off her back, as the left emerges from under the table, firearm pointed away and held between both of them.

"Is that so?" she wonders, her voice barely a whisper. "I've never been much for witchcraft, for however often I've been accused of being one...

"... but I don't mind a little bondage between friends." Her head tilts. The sliver of white teeth can be glimpsed as she grins, baring the hint of the canine that had so recently scraped Illyana's skin.

"... And you might even find you enjoy the ride even more than your grim burden of responsibility allows."

Gun held between them, by them, Mystique leans forward, the barrel just below their jaws.

"So then. Do you want to be my friend, Illyana Rasputina?"

Magik has posed:
Manifesting a strong, unassailable face is a matter of life or death for a child thrust into ruling a realm of hellfire and demons situated between other realms of other hellfire and other demons, many of whom had long since grown used to enjoying tactical access to its many doors in exchange for tokens of tribute to its former ruler.

(It also comes in handy for a teenager growing up in a cluster of other rowdy, gifted, scared kids who wants to ensure her exclusive access to the remote, which is LESS relevant, but true nonetheless.)

The playful, composed way in which Mystique receives her - poker face, radical ideals, and all - reminds her on some level to be thankful for the horrors of youth, because the alternative would be showing weakness in front of a woman who was growing tired of fighting desperate battles of survival before Illyana was even born. Beyond simply refusing to be anything less than herself in the face of the Russian mutant's casual flouting of spacetime and wielding of mystical forces, the metamorph almost seems to invite Illyana's grim severity for no reason other than to prove that she's above it-- as resistant to her airs as a sinfully rich man to the revolutionary mutterings of his economic lessers.

"A friend who understands the value of pragmatism..." she murmurs back, hand shifting against the gun so she can wrap her fingers around it instead.

"... and is willing to take time from enjoying confiscated wealth to drown the wicked in heir own blood..." Pale fingers graze blue ones when Illyana secures her grip around the gun; rather than try to push it any further, she holds it firmly in place, just beneath their faces.

"A friend who's loyal to her comrades, even after suffering the sting of caring about a cause... that sounds like a friend worth being bound to," accompanies a slender finger brushing against the trigger guard, lingering on the edge of curling inside.

Mystique has posed:
Caution. Caution is the name of the game.

Mystique plays with Illyana. She teases and provokes, probes for openings in the younger woman's composure -- because that's just her nature. A tiger, forever prowling. One might as well ask what a scorpion might be inclined to do on a frog's back. And when you come across another predator at the top of the food chain...

You circle. You prod. You assess.

And Mystique, if nothing else, has had survival scarred into her very genes.

For all her smiles, for all her seductive words, for all her playful teasing, she still holds a gun between them, to say nothing of whatever other weapons she has concealed on (or in) her person -- a gun she never strays from the trigger of until she's well and truly sure the powerful Queen of Limbo is not, in fact, setting her up. For now at least, the blue-skinned mutant seems satisfied; that dexterous finger snakes back.

... Only to find a pale finger brushing along it on a path towards the trigger guard.

Scarlet brows furrow. Yellow eyes narrow.

The smile remains.

And Mystique, fully out of her seat now, eases towards Illyana with serpentine grace, applying pressure with the mutual grip they share on her sidearm until she can push the blonde back into her chair, one slacks-clad knee easing up against the front of its well cushioned seat as the redhead lingers now just barely above the blonde.

Her finger slides back up, meeting Illyana's near that trigger. Despite the shift of positions, she keeps that barrel still lingering just below them as approval dances on her azure features.

"Good answer, dorogaya," she praises, her voice like a sweet caress in the richness of its tone. Her finger strokes back and forth atop Illyana's, every motion nudging it dangerously close to that trigger, as if it were now the symbol of their bond. The symbol of their revolution.

"... Then we have a deal. I'll be happy to help bloody these lovely hands of yours. And I certainly have a few ideas about this bold, new Liberation Front of ours, and a few choice candidates to bring into the fold. As someone who's been around this block quite a few times, you can consider me your... helpful guide into the world of mutant terrorism."

Her weight shifting onto the knee encroaching into Illyana's seat, offers those sweet, promising words:

"Don't worry; I'm very loyal to my friends... provided they treat me well.

"And you'll treat me well, won't you?"

Magik has posed:
Illyana sits straighter when Mystique bears down on her. She arches towards the pressure rather than pushing against it, stretching her arm high above her head. The combination of sweet praise and enthusiastic temptation draws a soft, short groan and fleeting frown from the woman who was going to put her finger on the trigger anyway, but is relieved to be so gladly enabled in her destructive tendencies even when they're just symbolic. There is no pout; her lower lip's just a little fuller than it was before. Maybe it's the angle Raven's taken, perched above her like a proud blue tigress.

Maybe Belasco stole her smile and traded it to some demon noble for a favor all those years ago, and this is as close as she can get to warmly greeting her nascent partner in crime.

Maybe it's some silent, lip-plumping sorcery.

What's certain is a jet-black thumbnail pressing into Mystique's ribs and gliding briskly upwards.

What's certain is: a beat after Illyana's finger gently cradles the trigger, her crooked index finger slides forward to graze the metamorph's throat for a moment before catching beneath her chin.

What's absolutely, unassailably certain as Illyana murmurs, "Stand by my side... share your experience freely... and I'll make sure there's golden honey on your tongue whenever you'd like," is the thumb she tries to slowly glide along Mystique's bottom lip-- and the arctic blue eyes staring directly into the sunny gaze of the predator above her.

Mystique has posed:
A trick of the light.

Foul sorceries.

A further sacrifice to the hell realms.

Who can say what makes Illyana's lip look like that now? All Raven knows...

... is that she quite likes it. -Quite- likes it.

And she shows that appreciation in the knife of her smile. In how she shifts her body weight with fluid grace, the sinuous sway of her hips helping to ease herself down until her legs are astride Illyana's hips, until she's settled her weight fully into the lap of the Queen of Limbo. In how she presses herself invitingly in towards the rising drag of Illyana's thumb.

In how she says in no uncertain terms, as her free hand presses a splayed-finger press against the center of Illyana's leather-wrapped chest to help pin her to the luxury of that chair,

"Finally. A friend that knows how to treat me right."

Every syllable dragging that lower lip of hers against the glide of Illyana's thumb as she cranes her neck, dipping closer, so much closer. Until her body heat is an inescapable presence in Illyana Rasputina's world.

It's warm. Pleasant. And couples so well with the damning promise that spills from those approaching lips.

"We're going to accomplish grand things together, dorogaya..."