Summary:Illyana and Remy share an introspective moment at the Institute's lake. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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After meeting up with her brother and best friend in Westchester, Illyana teleported them all back to the school and then left the newlydates alone to take a long walk to a short pier. A lot of students will come back to their high school and be nostalgic, but for Illyana it really has been a long, long time.
Dressed in black accented with silver in the form of chains and skulls and pentagrams, the blonde stands at the edge of the pier looking out over the lake. Kitty taught her to ice skate on that lake. She and the other students would gather around a fire and tell stories late into the night. It's a quiet, introspective Illyana that stands on the pier as the sun dips down and the stars start to come out.
Remy LeBeau had been out all day, down in Salem Center mostly, talking to old contacts and the like. Now he was coming back and after making a short layover in the garage he's wandered through the yard down toward the lake. At the end of the dock he sets a cooler down, he pops out two bottles of booze from it and then uses his new purple-cased cell phone to snap a picture of himself holding the booze before he texts it off to someone.
When he looks up after stuffing the phone into his pocket he spots the unmistakable form of Illyana at the other end of the dock. With a sly smirk he starts to walk on down her way carrying both bottles in one hand by their cold longnecks.
Once he reaches her, he steps up on her right side and stares off in the same general direction as she. Then, after a second, he looks over at her and shows her a faint smile. "You ain't tinkin'a jumpin' are you? Its not quite summer yet, Yana. Probably still pretty damn cold in dere."
Then he offers her one of the two drinks.
Even introspective, Illyana is attentive to her surroundings, and the soft rustle of Remy's movement since the thief isn't trying to be sneaky has her turning her head enough to locate him and soothe her inner paranoia that he's not a threat. When comes on over to her, she turns her head again to look at him, a faint smirk curving her lips. "I was born in Sibera." She tells him. The smirk slides away as she adds, "And I spent a few years in a blizzard as part of Belasco's exile. I don't really notice the cold anymore." The only thing that kept her going was living off of the resevoir of magic left in the great oak that was all that was left of her mentor. An oak she eventually killed in order to live. A refrain that repeats far too often in her story.
The blonde reaches out to accept the cold bottle, glancing from it to him and that smirk returns. "Do you ever *not* have booze with you, Remy?"
After she accepts the other bottle from him, he has to grin at her words of the chill. "Ah stand corrected." He quietly says, in an almost playful sort've way too. He pops the cap on his bottle and then rolls it across the back of his fingers before it ends up resting on its tup on the back of his thumb. He stares down at it for a second until the cap suddenly starts to glow a bright pinkish purple, then he flicks it up into the air like a coin… and it *POPS* leaving a shower of tiny little bright sparkles falling toward the water below it.
"I don't drink when I'm in the shower, Chere." Remy says then, glancing back over to her and flashing a light grin before he raises his own bottle up and takes a sip from it. He then shakes his head. "Nah. Its just good in the evenin' t'have one or two t'unwind. Especially when ya got a lot on your mind, yah?"
He looks back out to the water then and raises his stubble covered chin to let the lake breeze rush over his face and cast back some of his long hair for him. "What be on your devilish mind t'night?"
"So no time I'm likely to see you then." Illyana says with a chuckle, bringing the bottle that he thankfully uncapped for her to her lips and taking a long swallow as she watches the bottlecap dance and explode into a shower of light.
"Mmmm, not as much as you if you need help to unwind every night." The blonde jokes at the question. It's sort of her default state, lightly mocking. Tonight she's not quite hitting the level of reserve that usually comes with that humor. "Oh, was just talking with Kitty and Piotr earlier and it came up, how he wasn't able to save me." Illyana shakes her head. "*I* don't blame him… But I don't think he'll ever stop blaming himself. It… comes with a lot of related baggage that I try not to think too hard on." She takes another long swallow.
Gambit just grins at the part about the shower response and he has to shrug his shoulders and tip his head in response before he takes another sip of his drink and then raises his other hand up to shield his dark eyes, to peer out over the lake as though he's looking at something in specific and needs to block the sunlight out to see it.
But then he just drops that hand after he sees its an overturned boat on the far shore, students must've left it out there…
"Petey's your older brother, no?" Remy asks then. A second later and he's shaking his head. "He ain't never gonna let it go then, stuff like that gonna settle in his iron heart and just kinda… fester a bit. At least for awhile any how. He needs'ta get over the fact he weren't there for ya, and I'm figurin' that ain't easy for a guy with a heart like he's got."
Remy then lifts his bottle up and tips it a bit to showcase it. "He should try this, my kinda therapy for burdens like that. But… he too busy pretendin' he Mr. Universe t'give it ever a shot, I do believe."
Remy's movements draw Illyana's attention, peering off across the way to see the boat as well. "Hold on." She tells him, before summoning a stepping disk at their feet. The circle of light rises upwards, and while there's a bit of a tingling sensation that's it. At least for most people. Some, perhaps more sensitive to the way magic is closer to the surface, can have some adverse reactions to the sudden change in realms.
Just planning to move through Limbo, Illyana doesn't go to anywhere specific. As the disk that brought them here winks out, Remy can see the blood-red, starless sky over a bleak, blasted landscape. Boulders thrust up out of the ground like broken teeth and the dark, creeping sensation about Illyana that give so many the chills is a tangible thing here. Something you can taste.
"He's about ten years older than me. Or at least, was. I probably have a few years on him now." Illyana says, never missing a beat. This is home to her, after all. "But he'll always be my big brother to me, even if he looks younger. And I'll always be his baby sister."
The sudden change in scenery certainly gets the hairs on the back of Gambit's neck to stand up a bit more as his senses start to take in the new surroundings and his eyes slowly turn to look at Magik. "Ya know, this looks like what happens after social media destroys the world." He jests to her with a slight smirk. "What we doin' here, Chere?"
He starts to take a step forward but then stops and just turns to look back behind him to see what lays back in that direction… this stuff is rather fascinating to him. "Could make a whole Youtube channel about this place, make millions on explorin' this hell hole." He spent the earlier part of the day in the rec room with some of the students, they told him ALL about Youtube channels while he ate a bowl of Coco Puffs.
Remy then turns to look right at her, facing her. "You two, he and him. You guys just about the biggest contrast'a brother'n sister I ever seen, at least on the outside. On the inside? I… think I see quite a bit'a both there. Them hearts'a yours, that is."
"Just a stopover. I can't move directly from place to place. From anywhere I can get to Limbo, and from Limbo, I can get to anywhere." Illyana says as another disk appears beneath them and slides upwards, swallowing them both.
Now, they're at the far side of the lake, next to the boat that Remy spotted. "I'll let you in on a secret." The blonde notes as the disk winks out and she starts to pick her way towards the boat with those heavy soled boots of hers. "Limbo isn't static, like Earth is. Every time I walk out of the door to my bedroom there, things change. Sometimes my room is near the throne room. Others, it's up in a tower. If you walk for an hour in one direction and turn around, it won't be the same journey back." Illyana doesn't tend to rely on things staying the same the way most do as a result.
Illyana takes another pull on her drink, looking back at Remy as he fixes her with his eerie gaze. She frowns at his words. Words that should be a compliment, really. "No… I only play at being good. Piotr is the real deal."
Silence is what Illyana gets now as she transports them away from Limbo once and more back to the lake's side. Gambit does glance over at their returned location now and takes another sip of his drink before he looks back onto her and continues to listen to what she says.
"So it like a dream, in a way." He says then. "Ya know how those go, one second you're in a familiar place, then the next you're in someplace completely different. Or one second you're talkin' t'one person, then the next they're someone else. Least thats how my dreams go, especially if I dabble in a lil' bit too much'a this stuff." He says, indicating the half empty bottle in his left hand now and grinning at the comparison.
He also moves to help turn that boat up right so its not laying on its top, a long row boat that the students like to do water races with, several of them supposed to be stored in the boat house.
"You play up the bad girl stuff." Remy then says, pointing at Illyana. "That attire'n'all. But if you were truly the bad girl, you wouldn't be here… you wouldn't be helpin' these folk here'n what they tryin' t'do. That the point I'm makin' bout your heart, Cheri. It ain't as dark as your taste in threads."
Illyana Rasputina tilts her head side to side, thoughtfully. "A bit." She acknowledges of the dream comparison. "Sometimes it's worse than others. And I can force it to stay static, or at least part of it. For a while, at least. The same thing with how time runs there. It's disorienting for most." She admits. Much like dreams are.
The boat is turned rightside up, and Illyana hops into it, careful not to send herself over into the drink. While she may say the cold doesn't bother her, she's not interested in getting soaked. Remy's observation of her attire gets a short bark of a laugh. "I don't have a job, so I don't buy clothes. I conjure them. And Limbo is touched by darkness. It affects the spells I cast." She holds out her arms, as though to say 'viola' of her attire. "It's either this or something out of Victorian Horror R Us. I'm just glad I can manage modern looking clothes that doesn't have me walking down the streets in dominatrix gear."
The oddly chatty blonde tilts her head back to look at the emerging stars. Or maybe the god that would surely never speak to the demon-tainted young woman. "It's almost academic for me." She admits. "'What would Piotr do?' And I do that, because I know it's the right thing to do." She tilts her head to look back down at Remy, meeting his dark gaze with her cold, pale one. "If I did what I *wanted*? I'd steal the kids Plokta and Sifror are so interested in, because it's obviously a hell of a power play they're planning and I'd love to be in on it."
Remy keeps the boat steady while Illyana jumps up and into it, making sure it doesn't go no where until she's in it, then he directs it by its nose out toward the water and starts to push until he's stepping into the lake. He then nimbly hops up onto the edge and into a seat inside it himself, and they're off onto the water, with the boat shifting about here and there as it settles into its home out above the lake.
"Ya know, Chere." Remy says. "If'n you need money, I can set up a GoFundMe page to get you a whole new wardrobe. These kids in there taught me all about it t'day." He says, holding up his drink and motioning back toward the school to the south. He just flashes her a grin then. "A few pics of who the clothin' money is for and you'd probably rake in like a million dollars like that!" And he snaps his fingers to punctuate his words.
Another sip of his drink is had and then he's simply sitting and looking around them as he sets the bottle down and reaches for the oars to row them back toward the dock. He looks at her as she explains a bit more about her complicated life.
"Ain't no good plan evah started with the words 'I'd steal the kids.'" He comments, flashing her a grin. "You seem t'be doin' just fine at the moment, back here at this wonder school'n all. You got your Big Bro here, and you got Dougie-Doo too, yeah?" Now he's just toying with her.
Illyana Rasputina settles down onto one of the benches in the boat, as that makes it far less likely she'll take a header into the drink. Gambit's suggestion gets another huff of amusement from the blonde. "I'm pretty sure there's more to it than that, otherwise more people would do it. It also sounds like charity and that's liable to give me a rash. Or worse, begging. I can't even manage to use 'please' with my *friends*. You don't ask in Limbo. You take. If you can't take it, you don't deserve it." Illyana could just teleport into places and take the clothes, but again. Trying to be good.
The sorceress watches Remy while he paddles them back towards the boathouse, the full of her attention often a bit much for most people to be under. "Yeah, I have people that care." She just hopes she doesn't screw that up. She turns, looking off to the side then as she finishes off the bottle. There's the sense that there's a lot left unsaid there. But Illyana tries not to burden people with what she sees as her issues, and what they often see as trying to help her shoulder her burden.
Remy continues to paddle them along until he's got them up to a decent speed and lets the oars rest for a moment on cruise control, so to speak at least. He has to grin at her and softly shake her head. "I was just teasin', Chere." He tells her. "Lemme give ya some money so you can get clothes that you can wear about and not feel, ya know, weird in. I'd be happy t'help out around here… I been pokin' around tryin' figure out what I'm even supposed t'do here… Still not sure, ya know? X-Men stuff, but beyond that? What role do I even serve at this place?"
He reaches out to offer to take her empty bottle and should she give it he accepts it and then holds it up in the palm of his hand. From its base it starts to dissolve into a glowing pink mist, lowering down into his hand like people sorta do inside one of Magik's portals. After a few seconds its completely gone and the energy fades.
Remy's eyes look past his hand then and he grins at her. "Maybe I be the School's weird ass Janitor. Cleanin' up all the garbage like I do." He then says with a sly grin. His hands then reach back for the oars since they've slowed down again and he resumes rowing them back to the boat house.
"Or… maybe I just take over this here boat house and make it my private resort." This is said as he's staring at the building, thinking about how to fix it up to have a place of his own around here that isn't IN the school exactly.