aterat | Return of the Queen

Entry tags:

Return of the Queen

Who;Illyana + You
What; Network + Log of her return
Where;
When;Night on May 2nd
Warnings; Talk of death

I. Network

I found Athony. Turns out he has his own pocket dimension. Aspect of death and all that. Looks like they've at least mastered using the portals to go from here to there. Good for them.

Anyone visited the Academy while I've been gone. Been told recently that we could all do with a few lessons.

II. Wandering the streets

After what had happened before Illyana probably should have learned her lesson. Too bad she'd never been that great of a student. Sure, she picked up on things unusually fast, but she'd always been too headstrong to make a perfect student. Besides, she'd just gotten back and she wasn't really sure if she actually wanted to see anyone. Her head was a jumbled mess of memories of death from her home.

Memories of a small child slowly wasting away from a virus her own brother gave her. The memory felt more like watching a movie, as though it weren't actually her own memory. I hope to act like it does, if nothing else.

Was that all she was doing here? Acting like a real girl? For the first time she felt the full pang of missing her brother. She wished he was here. Big simple Piotr who only ever saw his little sister as the Snowflake she once was. She missed him, just like she missed Kitty and every one of the New Mutants. Tears welled up in her eyes, tears that she'd insist mainly came from frustration.

A portal appeared around her feet and engulfed her body only for her to remain exactly where she was.

"How dare you," she muttered as she wiped the tears away from her face. A series of curses in Russian escaped her lips and she pulled the hood of her jacket up.

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"If you care about a fine, go home," she said with a shrug. It'd be better for him to just go and leave her be anyway. But at the same time she wasn't entirely sure if she wanted him to go. Why was that? Wasn't her unfortunate display of affection she'd just shown enough?

Her eyes widened for a second, but she didn't actually pull away. "Where do you want to go?"

He didn't care about a fine and he shook his head at the very idea of it. He honestly didn't even know what the punishment for violating a curfew would be in a place like this. He was surprised at her response though, and her willingness to go along with him, but he did his best not to show it.

"Haven't the foggiest, but I haven't seen any of them around here, so we might be able to make it back to the residences without a problem." And they could take it from there, her place or his.

Usually she'd offer to teleport them both somewhere, but for some reason she didn't. Right now teleporting her reminded her of her lack of access to Limbo. Which in turn reminded her of the fact that she'd been brought back wrong again, a topic she had no desire to think about. The last time she'd been brought back with something wrong it had lead to a series of very bad events and memories. Things she'd much prefer to not deal with.

"Does anyone know what they are?"

He shook his head in response to her question at first, and almost unconsciously put an arm around her waist, starting them off in the way of the residences. He was enjoying the contact as much as he was her lack of rebelling against it, making him feel as though there was something, however small, that he could do for her.

"We're working on it, but nothing definitive yet. A building appeared north of the city, an academy if everyone around town can be trusted, but I don't know that we've gotten eyes on it yet."

The gesture was entirely foreign, but she managed to not recoil. That didn't mean she managed to not tense up completely, but she felt like not recoiling was a pretty impressive accomplishment. Even if she did feel confused as to why she eventually settled into the way they were walking. Somehow it made her feel a bit...safer, almost like when Piotr was around.

"What were you doing that you haven't gotten more information on those things?"

He'd learned many things about her in the brief time he'd searched her sword for traces of what had happened to her, and one of those things was wanting to be normal, and he could treat her like the normal girl he saw her as, even if he new she was a lot of other things in addition to that.

"Avoiding them and looking for you, love. I was worried." And I should have been.

"There was no reason to look for me." Clearly she'd been dead, her sword had ended up with someone else after all. Not that she'd ever told anyone about how that worked, but it also wasn't like she thought of that particular fact.

"Worry about me is a waste of your time. You should have tried to find out about those things and the academy."

"I think I get to decide whether or not there was a reason." He shook his head.

"I'm not the only one here, love, and the Academy isn't going anywhere."

She stopped suddenly and turned to face him. "What was the reason?" What was his exact motivation? Frustration was mounting inside of her at just how confusing everything was, between her own death, memories of her previous death, and her confusion over everything that had happened both then and now.

"I didn't mean to be caught," like she had been. "There was only one when I saw it at first. They do something psychically." And her own mental blocks had protected her from it at first. In a way that'd worked against her because she hadn't noticed it until the others had shown up and overwhelmed her. "I wasn't brought back completely right."

"The reason for what, looking for you even though it was dangerous?" He breathed a sigh. He'd really thought he'd gotten the point across already. "You're important to me, Illyana. It was important to me to make sure you were safe, and that...you weren't alone when you came back." Because he remembered a former employee who'd died and come back, and he still recalled vividly the feelings he'd felt from her sword.

"Yeah...I know." He should tell her. "You...know how I find people, yeah?" But that could wait. "What do you mean by 'completely' right?"

"I was alone when I came back before." Had she been fine then? No, not at all. She also hadn't had a soul at the time and that'd ended up with some rather disastrous consequences. She put a hand up near her chest awkwardly and shook her head. I shouldn't be, was what she wanted to say, but she stopped herself. This was all more vulnerability than she had any interest in showing and yet for some reason he seemed to bring that out in her. A part of her really did hate that. The bigger part of her just didn't know what to do with it because the truth was, she didn't want to be alone. She never had, but it seemed like the better choice back home after how she'd changed.

She tilted her head at his question and nodded. "Your powers." Wait... "Did you touch something to try to find me?" She'd already forgotten about what she was thinking of telling him.

"Yeah, I did." He breathed a sigh. He didn't know how she was going to react when he told her, but he wasn't going to hide it from her, either. He probably couldn't have even if he'd tried.

"Mono found your sword." That should go to great lengths to explain the rest. "What did you mean about not coming back completely right?" That seemed important enough to ask again.

"You touched my sword...?" how...unfortunate. She glanced over to him with eyes that were slightly wide before she ducked her head back down. Did she really want an explanation? Perhaps it would just be easier to pretend it hadn't happened at all.

"What did you see?" she shook her head at his question before finally admitting: "I can't get into Limbo." Which, she realized, admitted that her first thought upon coming back had been to flee to Limbo.

"Yeah. Not really sure why I thought it'd help, but I did." He didn't know if she would pull away from him, but he reached out, putting an arm around her shoulder as he did so, pulling her close. He knew a lot more about her than he did before, and part of that was knowing she was a girl who needed a lot more affection than she let on.

"And...you're not as far from the girl you used to be as you think you are, love. I can promise you that. And...embracing her doesn't make you weak." He looked over to her, smiling fondly. He couldn't avoid it anymore, as dangerous as it probably was. "It makes you beautiful."

He frowned, because he understood that was her sanctuary as much as it was anything. She'd conquered that place, in more ways than one. "There's nothing to run from here."

She flinched at his touch but, surprisingly, she didn't actually pull away. How strange. There was no reason for her to not pull away and yet for some reason she was oddly...she wasn't certain what she felt. Oddly comforted...? Perhaps. She swallowed and cast her gaze down.

"Piotr would say the same. That I am still his snowflake deep down. Every time he said those words they hurt." Was that the first time she'd admitted why it made her so angry? Yes, it was also the first time she'd even acknowledged it herself. At the word beautiful though she looked at him with a confused expression. "Beautiful? I suppose even monsters can be beautiful," she smiled for a second before quickly dropping her head back down. "There's plenty to run from." You. "I would break you."

"Well, love, I've touched a piece of your soul and I'm not broken yet." He may not look like much, but even Jagger knew he was tougher than he looked. It took a strong will to keep one's mind their own when it was constantly bombarded with the memories and residual emotions of others, to keep your feelings and memories separate from theirs, and an even stronger one not to run from those abilities, but to try to use them to help people.

He wasn't great with them, but he was getting better, and he had her to thank for that. "Maybe...he and I can see things you've difficulty seeing yourself."

"You touched the good part of my soul." The only good part she had left really. Then again, that part would have also shown him...oh. "You saw Belasco." It really hadn't fully registered until now that he would have seen the red demon and his promises of power. He would have seen how he'd tried to appeal to the child, tried to corrupt her, and how he'd coveted everything about her and her precious innocence. He might have been able to see her fear and her loneliness, her desperation, and that ultimately the corruption had worked. She'd turned to dark arts and despite her age she'd killed her two teachers there. Of course, he'd forced her hand there, but there was still shame in the situation.

She looked down and wrapped her arms around herself. "Or maybe you two are just naïve."

"It's very good, and very much a part of you, love." He gave her shoulders another squeeze but didn't let go. He also knew she didn't enjoy showing this level of vulnerability, and the significance of her trusting him with it was not lost on him. He also knew this woman was capable of protecting herself against likely any physical and most psychic threats that could ever try to harm her, but emotional damage wasn't so easily avoided and she desperately needed a friend who didn't see her as a monster.

Even if that friend's sole purpose was to believe in the woman she was until Illyana was able to believe in her herself. Jagger wanted more than that, he knew that now, and he'd stay as long as she'd have him. "I also know that he is too, and everything he made you to be, but I also know you've taken it and made it your own. If that makes me naive, I'm alright with that."

Jagger didn't touch others. That was not lost even on Illyana despite her confusion over everything that was going on here. This wasn't for her. Exchanges like this were what she watched others have, but never herself. It'd never been something she'd wanted and that was the truth. Some people might insist that they'd never wanted to date and that they'd never wanted to feel and they'd be lying. Their insistence would be nothing more than self-denial. That wasn't the case for her though. She'd really never wanted anything like that before. She'd never felt a longing for it when she saw others with their partners. Frankly, she found the distraction to be nothing more than an annoyance. Growing up in a demon dimension will do that.

Now though. Now she'd had more than a year of relative normalcy. Perhaps not true normalcy, but it was closer than anything she'd had before. She'd talked to people about their feelings and about social interactions and she'd started to learn. Sometimes she even felt like she actually was a real girl and not just someone doing their best to pretend they were one. In the wake of all that feelings had stirred inside of her. Feelings that completely and utterly confused her.

Or at least they had. The more she'd spoken with Mono and others around the more she'd begun to understand what they were. Was this what Kitty had felt like with her brother? Now she found herself wishing that her brother were actually here for her to speak with.

"You make me feel so ...confused. I wish Piotr was here."

He didn't, that was true, but in the year he'd known her, he'd come to realize something about her kept his own abilities from reading her. He'd never tried to force them through, and the lessons she'd been giving him had taught him more about control than he'd ever accomplished on his own. They allowed him to find the control within him for a sense no one else had, helped him to envision opening and closing it, something like an internal eye, and he was working on trying to focus that eye better, when it was open. He did that alone, but she'd given him the tools he'd needed to explore the idea. He was grateful to her for that.

He wasn't a particularly needy guy, he'd never really watched other couples and dreamed of being able to be that close to someone else, save for one time, with a girl who'd never really believed him when he'd told her touching was a bad idea, and who hadn't been able to handle what his abilities had shown him about her when they'd gotten too close. After that, he'd kept women at a distance, because that had hurt far more deeply than he'd realized at the time, and it was something beyond his control. He counted himself lucky his libido didn't idle on high, or else his lot in life might be a lot tougher to bear.

He had to enjoy the person to really want anything to do with them physically, and keeping people at two arms' length tended to keep that from happening. It's why he'd resisted his initial attraction to Illyana so much, it'd felt dangerous, though not for any of the reasons she likely thought it should, and now here he was, having let her in and committed to whatever it was this was becoming, damn the consequences, because that was how he worked. He couldn't complain, really. At least, with Illyana Rasputin, Queen and Sorcerer Supreme of Limbo, things weren't likely to get boring.

"I'm sorry, love." He eased his embrace slightly, not wanting to overwhelm her. "What's confusing? Maybe I can help."

"Piotr had Kitty and...others. Kitty had," she tilted her head and the tiniest of smiles flickered on her face. "Several Peter's." There was always a reason to tease her best friend about her bad luck in romance. Besides, Kitty had been a bit...what was the word? Boy crazy. She'd been a bit boy crazy. "Amara had...Empath and Roberto." Though those weren't really relationships anyone should look to as examples. None of the ones she'd seen around her were great examples of relationships.

"They were all more trouble than they were worth. It was nothing but twisted drama." And she'd never thought it was worth her time. She hesitated and put a hand to her chest awkwardly. "It made them easy to manipulate." There was no emotion in her voice when she stated that, no regret and certainly no second guessing. Nothing would ever make her regret how she'd played with Amara's feelings for Empath and Roberto's feelings for her. In the end, she had helped him save her despite having previously been fairly set on allowing her to die. "I told him what would happen to her in the future so he could save her. I still...I don't know why. It felt so...strange."

No, that's not true. Now she understood why. They had been her friends. Perhaps they weren't any longer, she wasn't sure how that all would turn out. It seemed like the idea of losing any of them had stirred emotions in her that she couldn't just ignore. Like now. She'd done well ignoring her growing feelings for him, but now it seemed to all be coming to a head.

"I have never wanted that." Not with anyone. "Or...I have never thought about it." She wanted to teleport away right now, to retreat to Limbo and just stay there, hidden away from things like emotions and feelings. But she couldn't. Instead she had to face this situation and it sucked.

"But I feel strange with you. Jittery." She looks over at him. "Like I felt on the eve of grand battles in Limbo between my forces and pathetic rebels."

At first he'd had a bit trouble deciphering what she'd meant by 'had', but it became clear as she explained. For a long while, he believed relationships were more trouble than they were worth as well. Lord knew Charlie had the same problems, men or women, he was always surrounded by drama. Charlie used to tell him it made him feel more alive, connected to people when he'd never really had anyone growing up, but it'd always seemed like an excuse when there were so many more important things to focus on.

He smiled at her confusion, but in a knowing way. He may not have much experience with actual relationships, but he'd worked with a lot of different people, and absorbing the memories soaked into objects gave you a perspective on peoples' motivations it was difficult to glean without that intimacy. It was one of the reasons he kept people at a distance. Those emotions were intense and volatile by their very nature, but they also made you stronger, capable of things you'd never be able to do without them. It was the dual-bladed nature of community.

"I...uh...don't know if that's nerves or excitement, but I'm hoping for the latter." He chuckled nervously. "Are you...looking forward to it or nervous about the outcome?" She'd used the term 'pathetic'. Not sure how to feel about that.

"Excitement. Do you think I'd be nervous before battle?" she looked momentarily insulted by the very idea. The only battle she'd ever found herself nervous about was that very last one and it had taken quite a long time for her to figure out why. Strange how it had taken her coming to a place like this and talking to someone half her age to figure out that she'd just been worried the other New Mutants. In a strange way it made her miss them even more.

"Can...it be both?" Because she was fairly certain these things were both. "I look forward to seeing you." If he ever brought that up again she was going to banish him to the furthest pits in Limbo. Once she had access to it back that is. "But all I have seen is how badly things go the closer you get."

"I can understand that." It wasn't as though he had exhaustive experience to the contrary, or in agreement for that matter. What he knew about his father and mother certainly agreed with her assessment. "But I don't think it has to be that way, either. I've heard of people living perfectly happy lives together." Could he even name those people? Not really.

He swallowed, though, because he could also admit to feeling the same way. "Well...sure, love, it can be both." It was both. He was excited every time he saw her, and scared about how it might end, if it would even begin. "Maybe...we should just focus on that, then; enjoying seeing each other."

"Name one." She was going to call him on that bluff. "In my world they all make a mess of everything or one of them dies. Then they come back and make a mess of it." No matter what it always seemed to go back to making a mess out of everything. "It's always a headache." For everyone else to deal with.

"Is there something more than that you want?" The words came out before she even understood what she was asking. Truthfully, even after saying it she wasn't quite certain what she'd meant. Of course, she wasn't naïve enough to not know what more there was. She had plenty of examples of that, along with examples of one-sided relationships and the problems that alone could cause. The problem was she'd always been too different to be caught up in any of that. Limbo and the loss of her soul had always claimed far too much of her for her to have anything to give to anyone else.

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