2319/Irresponsibility

Irresponsibility
Date of Scene:	04 September 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Meggan, Magik

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Meggan has posed:
"Illyana, d'you want to go into the city for a while?" Meggan had asked, which wasn't too shocking other than happening at 11:40 PM, but hey, she may have her reasons. She hasn't been around much the last week or so, though Illyana may not care much about such matters.

SOON ENOUGH,

The subway train has the burned-carbon-railing scent with the usual light subtle highlights of semi-functional air conditioning and the distant tang of rat urine. Meggan is wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. She's looking at her phone. Rude.

Except:

Texts. To Illyana.

> so i'm not wanting to say this on the phone becos obv
> but i have 1200$ with me and i've never had that much money before to spend
> what should we do with it?

After this Meggan looks over at her compatriot.

Magik has posed:
    Illyana is not dressed in a fashion that could be described as 'casual' - black leather pants with (sharpened) steel spikes running the seam at the outside of her legs, stiletto-heeled boots with decorative chains strung across the buckles, a bustier with a transparent abdomen and highly reflective cups, and a black leather jacket with spikes at the shoulders.
    She is sitting next to Meggan, and she is not looking at her phone. She is doing what she usually does, which is to say that she is staring blankly ahead and rarely blinking. This is causing some measure of consternation with the woman sitting across from her.

    The buzz of an incoming text goes ignored for a moment, but the second and then the third notification in rapid fire succession eventually prompts Illyana to unfold her arms, pull her phone out of a jacket pocket and look at it.

    "You should not squander it on whatever you very clearly are thinking of squandering it on," is Illyana's openly spoken response in English that, while lightly accented, is accented none the less.
    "You also should not arouse curiosity as to how you acquired such a sum in someone who would care."
    She is *very* helpful.

Meggan has posed:
"Awh," Meggan says immediately, before frowning slightly and saying, even as her arms fold before her and she doesn't put her phone away, "Well that's what everyone's told me. You don't think I'm saving most of it, do you?"

Maybe I should talk more about it, she thinks.

Then she decides: Nah.

"So now that you've said all that, what do you think I ought to do with it? I'm asking you since I trust you to be unbiased." After a pause, Meggan adds, "And you made it so I couldn't have second thoughts before already being in town."

Magik has posed:
    Illyana's phone, by contrast, goes right back into her jacket. She never really seems to use it - when you can teleport anywhere on Earth in the blink of an eye, maybe texting just loses most of its appeal. Plus, you know, the whole 'dead inside' bit.
    "I presumed that if you were asking me to take you to the city you had already made the decision. If you would prefer, I can return you to the mansion."
    From another pocket, Illyana takes a pack of cigarettes; she lifts it up to darkly painted lips and draws one out, but leaves it unlit as her hand slips the pack back into her jacket.
    "What do you *wish* to spend it on?" she asks. That it sounds, perhaps, a touch 'super-villainy' is merely a consequence of the fact *Illyana* is, perhaps, a touch 'super-villainy.'

    "And really, what do you believe will be the reaction when your comrades discover how you are coming into large sums of money entirely in cash? It is not difficult to guess the source."

Meggan has posed:
Meggan pokes out her tongue at the preference.

"Fun," she answers. "I mean I've never gone out and done all this shit, especially at night." AND EVEN A CUSS WORD. Don't tell Jean. "I don't even know. I already ordered some new clothes. And I saved half of it."

After a beat of silence, Meggan says, with a sort of hope, "Surprise? Jealousy, maybe. Why, what do you think I got it from?"

After THIS Meggan leans back in her seat and looks momentarily away from Illyana, which would be more convincing if her eyes weren't kind of half-tracking her. She raises one hand to knock her knuckles lightly against the window glass, without any real force.

Magik has posed:
    Illyana takes the cigarette from her lips and rolls it absently between long-nailed fingers, still just staring ahead; by this point, the woman across from her has done the rational thing, has gathered up her belongings and moved to a different seat, one where she won't have to deal with the distinctly uncomfortable feeling of Illyana's eyes burrowing into her. "You are," Illyana says, "Past the age of consent, have managed to construct a default form that is conventionally attractive to the tastes of the predominant culture, and possess the ability to reflexively shapeshift to adapt to the wishes of those around you."
    She continues, "One need not be Poirot to arrive at the conclusion that you have begun to strip. With even baseline proficiency it is easy to procure several thousand dollars in one weekend. I think you would not steal, and in my experience you are too guileless to deal in narcotics, so this seems the only logical answer."

    "You are of course welcome to deny it if you wish. In truth, I am not particularly invested in the matter."

Meggan has posed:
"Ha! I -"

Meggan oscillates like a sine wave between three states of facial expression, which go something like this -

A1. 'Aha, you're wrong!'
B. 'Wait, maybe you're right.'
A2. 'How dare you!'

This easily takes up much of a page, and at the end of it Meggan slumps back, running one trim but uncolored fingernail over the bridge of her nose. "Well, you're closer than you think," she concludes. "You put it like you're Mister Spock, though."

After this there is an interval of silence. The train is approaching a station.

"So what are you staring at that lady like that for, d'you think she's a spy or something?" Meggan says, watching that woman move away from Illyana the Dead-Eyed Killer.

Magik has posed:
    "As I said, I am not so invested. But do not be surprised when others object - certainly Jean at the least will find it unpleasant, and I suspect would ask why you didn't just ask for a larger stipend as there are several billionaires who fund Xavier's various projects."
    Illyana is still staring ahead.
    "What? No. I'm just looking forward. I do not blink much anymore."
    Illyana adjusts the lines of her jacket and rests the back of her head against a heavily-graffitied window.
    "Where do you wish to get off?"

Meggan has posed:
"Jean will probably feel guilty she nearly got me killed in space," Meggan says. There is a pause of several seconds as Meggan considers just how badly that sounds, or how casual. Maybe it's self doubt.

"Anyway, I can't stay in the school forever, can I?"

The train comes to a stop and that woman gets off, perhaps a little early. Meggan watches her, perhaps alarmed now - now she has something to lose. Maybe all of this was a mistake, she thinks, even as she answers Illyana, "The next stop, maybe. If I got a drink, would you want one?"

The train starts moving again. "Do your eyes ever hurt? From the blinking, I mean."

Magik has posed:
    "Did Jean nearly get you killed in space?" asks Illyana in response. "That tends to happen, I think. I have never been fond of space."
    Her shoulders lift then fall in a little shrug; she folds one leg across the other and places her cigarette once again between her lips. "No, it doesn't hurt. I am no longer very human even by the standards of a mutant - it is difficult for most things to hurt me, and when they do I heal quickly. I on occasion try to mimic human behavior, but I am not good at it anymore."
    "And," she adds, "Alcohol would not affect me, for the same reason. There are a few things that can, but they are native to Limbo, they are things more ... attuned? ... to the physiology of what I am now."

Meggan has posed:
"Not directly," Meggan says. "It was a sort of - I was trying to reach out to some sort of monster, past Jupiter. I don't think it worked. I had to retract my nerves to live through it, I think that's what I did, anyway. I can't tell if I've put them back right."

Meggan is silent then, listening.

"Well that's awful," she says finally. "Would they kill Earth people, do you think?"

Magik has posed:
    A thin brow arches upward at Meggan's question.
    "Kill? No, to no greater degree than any such thing will kill in too large an amount. In some communities, there is trade in such things - occultists, and diabolists, and the like. 'Black magicians' so-called."
    "I would not recommend it, but I am not your keeper. You wish to try such things?"

Meggan has posed:
"If you want someone to drink with," Meggan says with a half shrug. She tries not to smile.

It doesn't work, but the smile also doesn't last that long. It is not easy to smile a lot around Illyana without working at it, Meggan thinks.

She thinks longer on something else Illyana said, and at about the time when her own desired station of exit comes up, she says, "Do you hate pretending?" Her lips purse like a television model as she looks at the little advertisements in the upper corners and moves to stand up, grasping one of those little leather handstraps that almost certainly have a thousand diseases on them and hitting her hip on a metal rail bar, hard enough to make a metallic CLANG.

"I mean, or is it just hard."

Magik has posed:
    With the train preparing to stop and with no particular fear of the transit authority, Illyana at last lights her cigarette with - well, with nothing, the end simply bursts into flame as she draws deeply enough to leave her breasts threatening to spill over the top of her bustier before finally exhaling through her nostrils. "Do I hate it?" she asks while she stands, managing a perfect balance on the suicide heels of her boots despite the braking of the car. "No, I suppose not. It's expected, is all. A social more I generally uphold."
    She doesn't take one of the straps. She doesn't seem to need any help.