Summary:Doctor Strange returns to the Sanctum after dealing with a mystic problem. Wanda and Strange break bread, and question each other's god-awful sleeping habits. Log Info:Storyteller: {$storyteller} |
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AM All was quiet at the Sanctum…..
For the moment.
NOTHING is ever quiet at this source of concentrated occult magic and knowledge, or at least not quiet for long. Though, the silence would soon enough be broken by Strange appearing out of a portal, narrowly avoiding what looked to be demonic tentacles. A few gestures later, and the monster is banished back to it's own reality. The Doctor is in!
"The last time I ever go to the Dimension of the Lidless Eye."
Did he piss off Cthulhu? Probably.
Nevertheless, the Cloak of Levitation removes itself from his shoulders, and Strange goes to his library, taking a book off the shelf without looking and settling at a desk, apparently reading the Book of Cagliostro.
The Study of Time.
Perfect moment to interrupt.
AM The Sanctum. Home. Home away from home. A rootless tree is soon blown over by the storms of life, but those that sink tentative filaments deep into the soil can withstand the roaring vagaries of a daily routine and perhaps manage to weather the worst.
The wards such as they are probably recognize Wanda instantly. Her signature, usually suppressed, is hard to overlook. In the world, the number of mystics with warped genetics is terribly low. Those toting home a basket of black bread from somewhere in the depths of the Lower East Side, even fewer. She carries a trace of the deadly signatures, bio-hazardesque, from the Disaster Zone on her coat. The particles are small, their volumes low, suspended by the enchantments on her bordeaux leather jacket.
A sickly tree then. But a tree with at least a few roots in this world, much as they seem to span several in a facsimile of the World Tree binding Midgard to the other realms. Nine, ten, take a count.
"I thought we were done with things with more than fifteen appendages," she remarks without immediately looking up. Flipping open the box is important, of course. The bread? Safely intact, wrapped up, ever so dark. She picks up the sprig of rosemary hidden in there and breathes in the herbal scent. Green as always.
AM Stephen reads quietly, but the trace and mystic signature of Wanda is almost impossible to overlook at this close a vicinity. Her words bring a chuckle to his lips, a sound that was never heard when the Sorcerer Supreme was alone. Even Wong can attest to this.
But, he takes a breath, and notices that she had decided to bring herbs and bread.
"I thought so too, but when a squid-monster decides he wants to conquer another dimension dangerously close to our own, in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn't quite be good." He notices that the book starts to become jumbled…as it's said that Cagliostro fell into madness due to his obsession before he passed into the realms beyond. Closing the book, he stands and places it back on the shelf, only to approach Wanda. "Well, you look lovely today. Why the rosemary?" he asks, a tone of curiosity and intrigue perhaps tainting his words.
AM Few possess her aura, an invisible halo that radiates with the untold life force bound into the very earth and the water. Shattered chords ring with the music of the celestial spheres when it briefly rouses, a muted ballad of Venus and Auriga twined together before spinning apart. High and sweet, bold and steady for harmony, the sounds play to the senses mystic and evaporate. She taps the bread with her fingertip. A dense resistance from the hard crust meets with every Slavic measure of approval.
The young woman looks up. Her eyes find his, avoiding the grimoire and all the temptations it might hold, no stranger whatsoever to its lure. "When a squid-monster decides he wants to move in," she says in her crisp mezzosoprano accent, "use salt." That is probably discomfitting. Still, a hint of her harder edges is never far from view. Treat with care all those sharp planes that make up the Maximoff girl, for she can cut. She holds up the box for his inspection, both hands supporting it. Gloves leave her fingers bare, their fan showing a hint of her chipped nail polish. A streak of grime, a touch of dust along the outer edge of her palm. Where she has been is mundane, ruinous, troubled.
"Rosemary for cleansing and purification." Old craft, Old World correspondences as long ago as the fallen city-states of Greece and their sisters under the shadows of Persia, the Zoroastrian cults, further still. "I tried. The land still burns there. Unclean and it will poison the city still."
AM Very few indeed….and yet, almost none have such a powerful connection to such a dark entity. It is curious, yet noteworthy. Simple, yet complex. Though the tap of the bread earns a look, when her perfect eyes find his own and offer the box to his inspection, his own bare hands shakily support it, glancing inside to it's contents.
"Your spirit is troubled."
Troubled? It was like it shouted to him. His scarred hands seem to lower themselves back to his sides, nodding softly to her to signify she can place the box back to where she intends it to go. "A wise saying nonetheless. Though I doubt salt will work on demonic squid creatures as it would other cephalopods."
Silence.
A smirk.
AM True. The garnet spike rammed through her proverbial being is her own, tinged black only to those able to see deep into the heart. In the world walking, no one else carries the divine interplay. They do not claim two very real parents and a third cut through them in the same fashion. Wanda cannot flatline her genetics, any more than the doctor can convince the Cloak to go romance a bead curtain if it doesn't want to. When he takes the box, her hands wordlessly slide under his to support the transition from her possession to his. Scars and damage meet immaculate smoothness unimpeded by damage or aging, the suspension of youth continuously and vigorously renewed.
A halo of warmth between them and a spark of static electricity. The biohazardous material in tiny quantities lies more on the hem of the knee-length coat rather than the sleeves, but it's there too. Protections slither through the armouring enchantment on the lush, dark shade of rubicund leather, but still a problem to be dealt with sooner or later. "I do not like this unhealing wound. It will hurt us and the city until healed." English isn't her first language, nor her third, not even her fifth. Weariness brings out the inevitable Slavic undertones rather than the perfectly rounded, posh accent alluding to her years in London and its surrounds. That tends to come to the fore when she needs to flip opinions on immigrants, women or anyone pushing her with a bias that demands correction.
"Himalayan salt, purified right, would. And demonic?" Her eyes narrow. Rose flares in the pupils where colour shouldn't be. No further sentiment given. The hunter in her — and she very much is one — crackles with a bloodhound alertness to that. Still, she nods to the bread as he drops his hands. "Do you want any?"
AM Her touch always did have a habit of making his hands stop shaking. The fleshed tinged by scars that have never been able to heal naturally. Why did Stephen never use magic to heal his hands? Because if this were so, then he would simply forget the trials he suffered to reach this point. His ego would take over. He'd lose Wanda. Whatever would come from the future.
All things he is unwilling to lose. Though, he does take a deep breath, the combined enchantments proving stronger the closer they are together. "I find myself agreeing with your diagnosis." he either doesn't notice or is so used to her Slavic accent peeking out every now and then that it's simply second nature for him to hear it at this point. "….fair point."
Stephen smiles kindly to her. "I would like that very much, if I may be permissed to do so." Poor Stephen, still asking her opinion out of habit, not out of necessity.
"But at some point today, I think it would be wise if you rested. Take it from the guy who doesn't sleep." Because he's off protecting reality. 24/7. Whenever he's needed.
AM Ego up against the vessel of the darkest of dark gods might be a spectacularly bad outcome for New York, but fabulous for stories. Where they belong, no doubt, trashy encounters written in a journal hidden under the bed or stowed in a corner where it can never be written. No one wants to know about the tales of the Mad Archmage or the Witch-Queen. Her loose mahogany hair falls around her shoulders in a skein starting to curl, when usually straightened in its own right. Those ends turned under sheet along her shoulders and course down her back. His touch is a grace gone, her body moving in sinuous alignment to place the bread somewhere on a table.
No cutting by whatever bakery she bought it from means some things must be done on their own. A flick of her wrist and a knife comes to hand from the wrist sheath. She brings it point down and slices a line into the crust, revealing far softer innards. No doubt without the yeast, the same metaphor applies to them both. It would be nice to think so. She lifts the first piece to him, another cut delivering something of a thinner wedge. Those carbs are essential to keep her invested healthily against the monstrous energy outputs she burns all the time, so her summary bite is not exactly delayed long. Neither does she show any remote appreciation for her food. This is mechanical. Don't eat now, don't have any later. The rules of survival have never left even if she is partly gentled, hardly domesticated. Yet.
"It's good. They know how to make it right." Her judgment around nips of the bread is telling enough. "You worry that I do not sleep. Why have you not? I can watch until you are done."
AM A wise clash? Not in a millennium. But a truly entertaining and epic one? one that would shake the mystic world to it's core? Yes, in every sense of the word. The Strange household kept to strange ways, even as they defer to quieter moments such as this.
Yet, he graciously accepts the bread that is offered to him, taking a gentle bite. Her question is a powerful one, and not to treat lightly. A small breath is taken once his food is swallowed. "Because I have had much to do. I intended to study further, but you are more important to me than a book. If by my resting, you too will rest…Then my decision is already made."
Perhaps, and only perhaps, his fingers will attempt to gently encircle her own, proving true to the words echoed from his lips. Grey eyes find her own, a silence washing over.
AM Arguably the household is a great deal less strange with a red mote in its very blue heart, even if that mote is from time to time known to raid the pantry in the middle of the night or give postmen a deep dismay for the Bleecker Street address. Or the adjacent New York University students, the most sensitive of them known to shudder when the world moves askew thanks to the mysteries pursued by both slant visionaries dwelling under one room.
Truths shake through the skull and race down the spine, gilding the ribs and pooling into places nameless in the conventional telling of biology. Another fleeting touch skates along Stephen's wrist, her departing fingers leaving a spark of impression upon the pulse point buried within. Enough as a reminder of reunion in place of breaking bread in the grand foyer, like children tucked together under a blanket without their parents knowing they're awake. Not that their respective parents would ever countenance exactly what they do. As he grasps her wrist, the promise turns up in the molten golden-green depths of that vast, ancient gaze.
There will be no Latin maxim about who watches the watchmen, or else bedtime will be pushed even further off, no doubt. Her thoughts course around a possibility. "I will. Eventually." A smirk.
AM Stephen looks into those eyes, feeling as if he gazes longingly into the darkness of the abyss, the red spear long having been plunged into his heart. He had lost before such a battle ever truly began. Less Strange, now perhaps the surname should be ceremoniously switched to 'mysterious'.
Hand to wrist, wrists to hand, Stephen can feel her gentle pulse, the feeling of life continuing to find away even against unspeakable darkness. Yet, her response draws a smile to his lips.
"Then I suppose it gives me enough of the comfort I need." That same hand attemptsto squeeze her own, only before his lips press to her forehead, gentle as rainfall. "I will return to my studies then." He releases her. "You May join me, if it pleases." Then he turns, finishing his bread…
A long night of research yet ahead.