8252/Demons and horses are basically the same

Demons and horses are basically the same
Date of Scene:	10 July 2019
Location:	Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Illyana appears covered in blood. Betsy tries to get her presentable and then lets the Queen of Limbo terrify children.
Cast of Characters:	Psylocke, Magik

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Psylocke has posed:
Betsy loves the horses at the Xavier Mansion. They remind her of being a young child and riding them around her own family's estate. Of course, she grew up and discovered clothes, exotic locations, and ninjutsu but that appreciation for simple pleasures never really went away. So, from time to time, she finds herself in the stable. Her arms dangle over one of the stall doors as she watches one of the beasts chew placidly on a bail of hay. Her fingers drum on the wood, out on the lawn a gaggle of Xavier's School students on their summer program run laps at her direction while she pays them little to no attention at all.

Magik has posed:
Horses are an easily startled creature. Spooked by things like snakes and large lizards of all variant that could be considered threatening or harmful, but also keenly aware of the supernatural whether overt or subtle. Illyana could be consider a combination of these things, though she is reptilian only by speculation by those who feel humanity has been replaced by lizards people.

Far fetched dribble, obviously, but her presence is quite unpleasant to the ultra sensitive or easily startled. Especially as she has a tendancy not to enter like a normal person, but just appear places as if by random. Through no particular set of decernable pattern, where there is no Illyana, suddenly there is one. Standing far enough away from Betsy that she's not a ready made target, but close enough that the wind kicking up from her arrival by way of teleportation disc kicks hair up and dirt from the stall floors.

It also startles the horses.

She isn't facing the animals or the stalls. She's staring out the doors, wearing clothing that is ill suited for the weather like she's just returned from Siberia or the Arctic. Fur lined coat, thick books and a heavy wool beanie on her straight blonde hair. She is covered almost head to toe in blood.

Psylocke has posed:
"Sorrel," Betsy begins, not looking up as the rush of wind brushes over her bare legs in their Xavier's School monogrammed athletic shorts, "I told you that super-speed doesn't count as running laps. Turn around and do it proper-"

The violet-haired telepath's words trail off as she realises she's not speaking to an errant student but ... someone else. Entirely. She takes in the blood-soaked Illyana quietly, a switch turning over in her brain. She goes into defensive mode, the mode Kwannon excels at. Her shoulders square into a loose, combative stance as she calls out sharply.

"Who are you?" her voice is crisp, commanding and bereft of the usual lilt.

Magik has posed:
Illyana is unaware how unusual she must appear in her blood stained winter wear, but she would be wouldn't she? The sharp question draws her attention over her shoulder towards Betsy by the stables. Pale blue eyes taking in the tall woman in her defensive stance casually, maybe a little dismissive, but not to the person so much as the inherent threat that person could represent. "Illyana Nikolievna Rasputina." A blood gloved hand lifts up in greeting.

Which is how she knows she's gore splattered. Her attention goes to the arm of her coat, then down at her chest and legs, immediately striping some of it off with little to no regard to what she could be wearing beneath. Thankfully, it's something. A tank-top at least. The beanie is the first to go, tossed down onto the dirt along with the coat. Free of those restraints, she leans against the wall to start pulling her boot off one lifted foot.

Psylocke has posed:
Betsy seems partially relieved by the response. Most super-villains bent on doing harm don't perform a Quentin Tarantino strip tease before they do it. The telepath furrows her brow as she tries to scrounge up some surface thoughts, unable to find anything much more than her name being what she says it is. Her shoulders relax a little more and she doesn't immediately launch into attack mode.

"Please tell me you're a student - former student? It's just that I've got a class to teach and I don't really have time to do the whole kick-punch routine."

As the clothes continue to come off, her eyebrow raises slightly and she asks: "Do you want a towel or something?"

Magik has posed:
Illyana glances over the work on her boots at Betsy, "I was student. I am Piotr Rasputina's sister." Actually she's not sure if that's true, the part about being a student, and stops pulling off her boot to consider it. Staring down at the dirt, leg cranked up over her other knee, and hands wrapped around the heel of her boot, she just stands there for way too long with a blank expression. "Da, I was a student." Immediately getting the boot off once she starts tugging at it again.

The other is easier and, because it was very cold wherever she came from, she's wearing longjohns beneath her bloody cargo cold weather pants. "Towel... I would like one, yes." Her arms are splattered with blood, but not nearly so bad as her clothes. She turns them over so she can see the bottom and then looks up at the horses still baying in frustration despite the initial disturbance having passed.

They're not very fond of her either, apparently.

"What is class?"

Psylocke has posed:
"I'll tell you what class isn't," Betsy answers, falling out of her threatening stance entirely when she learns Illyana is a former student, "Class isn't stripping down in the stables. Come on, let me take you inside before the students see you and you fuel enough weird adolescent nightmares to power the state for a month."

She makes an effort to usher Illyana out of the stable, trying to encourage her to follow her up the path and back towards the Mansion. Out on the grounds, the students continue to run lazy, wide circles. Now completely unsupervised. Teacher of the Year.

Magik has posed:
"They offer this class?" Illyana's head snaps up to look at Betsy with a little surprise in her voice, "Corriculum is changing very much..." In part, she sounds disappointed, but also a little disgusted that Xavier would sign off on such a lesson.

Regardless, she's led, after collecting the bundle of dirty clothes in her arms which does nothing to clean her skin of blood and only compounds the matter, out of the barn. Most of the students, especially the older ones, know how strange Illyana can be. They remember the Hell Flower Bouquet she left last Fall for new students.

So they are unsurprised, perhaps, that she is strolling across the yard with Betsy. Barefoot, wearing a tanktop and longjohns, and kind of bloody. Because of course she would be.

Psylocke has posed:
Betsy eventually gives up trying to spare Illyana her dignity. Especially when everybody else seems to be taking it all in stride. Instead, she leads the way into the Mansion and makes a direct line for the nearest supply cupboard. She digs around inside a little, leaning back to peer at the bloody woman and take her measurements with her eyes. Satisfied, she comes out with some athletic wear all branded with the same blue and gold X that is the school's logo. She holds them out for Illyana to take.

"You can get changed into these. They're decidedly less blood-soaked ... also probably better for the warm weather, right?"

Magik has posed:
If Illyana had better sense she would be aware that this is undignified. "Thank you." It takes her a second to decide what to do with the blood stained clothes in her arms, but only a half second to toss them down on the floor. "It is not human blood." That is suddenly important to point out, rather than when she first arrived. It might have made things less awkward, but that's how it goes with her. Small details don't really matter until they do matter.

Now that she's fresh clothes, and maybe because some of her good sense is returning, she walks with it towards a downstairs bathroom.

Psylocke has posed:
Betsy cannot help but sigh inwardly in relief when Illyana heads to the bathroom to change. She had already prepared to intercept her and usher her in that direction if she continued the blood-soaked jungle child act in the hallway. She wanders off lazily after her, glancing at the bloodied clothes on the floor but not bending to pick them up. Someone else will come and do that. Surely. She may be on the faculty but this is a mansion and Lady Braddock didn't raise a servant. She posts up just outside the door to the bathroom, leaning against the wall and craning her neck to see if she can spy the children through one of the windows. When she can't, she entrusts them into the hands of God and goes back to waiting for the strange visitor to get changed.

Magik has posed:
There's the sound of water running through the door and paper towels being torn off a roll. Likely as not, she's cleaning herself off before changing into the new clothes given her by Betsy before being spirited into the bathroom. It's a good thirty minutes before she returns, mostly clean but with matted hair and small smudges where water and handsoap wont be enough. At least she doesn't look like she's come out of a slasher flick anymore, just an operating room. A peek inside the bathroom probably isn't advisable.

There's a question people ask about the manners someone demonstrates: Were you raised on a barn. Illyana was raised in hell. There are very few rules there, but she's enough good sense to at least put trash in trashcans, even if blood in sinks is outside her scope. "Thank you for standing guard." Patting her face dry with a paper towel, a long smear of blood visible on her undarm where she likely couldn't see it. "I will bring you a plant in appreciation."

Psylocke has posed:
"A plant?" Betsy asks. Something about that bodes ill in the back of her brain, but for the life of her she can't remember what it is. She resolves to be grateful that the gift will be a plant and nod the severed heads of her enemies.

She doesn't so much as crane her neck to look inside the bathroom. An aristocratic upbringing freeing her of any and all concern for something like cleaning up after one's self. Besides, they can blame it on a student after all. Wasn't Tad a haemokinetic? That little pain in the ...

"So, do I feed you now or do you return to the blood-soaked wilderness?"

Magik has posed:
"Am I hungry?" Illyana asks with a frown, likely not asking Betsy so much as vocally considering whether she may be so. "No, I am fine. Is it breakfast or lunch time?" She wasn't wearing a watch and looks dubiously up at the grandfather clock in such way as to not be very trusting of it or the time it is giving.

Grandfather clocks are known to be really sinister, afterall.

"Yes, a plant." She murmurs, padding with quiet steps on bare feet towards the window that she can check on the children they've abandoned to their devices out by the stables. Thin fingers seperate the curtain to peek out at them and seems satisfied by what she's seen.

Then again, she showed up covered in blood so her gauge for normalicy may be askew.

"You did not tell me what you are teaching. Hopefully it is not riding lessons. I think maybe this is not a class that you should leave them to learn on their own, mm? Children are very stupid. Horses are also very stupid.. maybe smart as far as animals go, but... it is not best for so much stupidity to be left unsupervised with extraordinary abilities involved?"

Psylocke has posed:
"Huh?" Betsy asks, having momentarily forgotten all about the students left in her care outside, "Oh, no, they're fine. It's just summer class. They're running laps. They're the kids who either ditched Phys Ed last semester or failed it. Which I don't see how you can fail it, but yeah, stupid I suppose."

This is an awful, awful way of talking about the children left in her care. It might be that she doesn't really feel that way, but she's had a rotten few months and punishing children for her own misery is one of the perks of being a teacher. That's why whole generations of them got into it in the first place!

"It's probably closer to lunch time. You might as well come out and wathc them run in circles with me. Do you like circles?"

Stupid, baffling question it is but it seems like it might be the sort her newly-clean companion might enjoy.

Magik has posed:
"If they are already prone to ditching..." Illyana squints at Betsy, then looks back to the window, and finally fixes the teacher in pale eyes, "They may well see the abandonment as advocation of their desire to continue that course of behavior. Negative reenforcement." Her eyes roll upwards into her skull, considering, "Maybe negative positive.. You are not beating them."

It's all besides the point really, at least by her own estimation, since the children are the most important part. Even if she herself has no reason to care about them, in particular. Which she does not. Evident by how quickly what little regard she had been paying is gone in the same time it takes to blink.

"Circles are an interesting shape. It would be more complicated for them to run in a square, but I would put down american currency that they are not running in a proper circle either." Pointing towards the window at the same instance as walking towards Betsy so that they can return to the yard. Are those her bloody clothes beside the door? She steps over them without even flinching to consider if she should pick them up.

"Have them carry chalk while running in circle. Maybe powdered elk antler.." Thoughtful a second, but she shakes her head as if it doesn't really matter, "They draw a circle as they run. Then you summon a demon and if their circle is true, they all survive.. they will learn to take pride in their work." She stops once they reach the grass to flex her toes into the dirt.

"Hopefully. I guess they could also be devoured. That is... it is absolute worst case scenario though." Waving a hand, still curling her toes. "I like the grass here."

Psylocke has posed:
Betsy lets the talk of demons and powdered elk antlers float right on by. As many questions as that raises, she gets the strange feeling like the answers will not tell her much more than she already knows. Illyana is from a strange place and has strange habits, sure, but the Russians probably think the same thing about them so it's all a wash, right?

"Want to yell at them with me? You can be my Teaching Assistant provided you don't want to get paid for it."

Magik has posed:
It is well known that Russians are inclined towards demonic manifestation since the rise of Communism. Steeped in the Occult, it is said. Suffice as to warrent the black listing of ample individuals from position of governance and entertainment, less they spread their satanism through programming shown to babes.

"I can yell at them?" Her head perks up suddenly as if she'd just been given a great gift unexpectedly and for no particular reason. She even grins, "Da, I would very much like to yell at the children." She probably doesn't yell, despite appearing quite excited to do so. She is terrifying enough without having to raise her voice much to her own chagrin.

Psylocke has posed:
"Sure, they love it."

They don't.

"I do it all the time."

She does.

"I'll just tell them you're here on work experience," Betsy finishes, lifting and waving her arms over her head to get the attention of the circling students as they approach them and calling out, "Alright! Listen! Ms. Rasputina is going to be your guest teacher for the day! Listen to her or detention, etcetera."

She trails off a little with the last part, waving a hand through the air as if to say they know the drill.

Magik has posed:
"You!" Illyana at least waits until Betsy has given her blessing before pointing one of the children out. "If you do not finish your laps in a more timely manner than your previous six attempts, you will be visited by horrors unlike any of a worldly nature. Ancient terrors visiting you in your dreams, so profound as to return you to an earlier state of fear suffice to engage your bladder in matters of sleep!"

She claps her hands sharply, stepping forward to snarl at a girl who is probably only her junior by a few years. "Run like a abishai is seeking your blood." If fire were to radiate off from her in some eldritch display of demonic power, she could be no more effective in spurring young legs to quick motion.

Her jaw twitches and the sudden flash of anger fades sharply when turning back to Betsy. "That was fun."