01st transformation . video . locks for erik & charles

[permutates]

[ She greets the barge with a smile. Her appearance is 'normal' - normal for a human. No blue skin or yellow eyes in sight. ]

Hi. [ And a little wave. She regrets it immediately. That's kind of embarrassing, isn't it? And not something that she should be doing, because she's here for a purpose. ] I'm Raven.

I heard a few of my friends were here, so I thought I'd come… help. I'm a warden.

And I'm here because I really believe that even if you're trapped, you still should have a chance to figure out who you are. I think that's important.

[ locked to Erik ]

Well, you thought I was crazy for trying, but I found you.

[ locked to Charles ]

[ She considered her approach to this for a long time. There are a lot of things that they should probably say to each other, and she's supposed to be responsible here. She can't just avoid him, as much as she wants to, while she gets her head together. ]

You should know that I'm here.

Comments

[permutates]

I don't want to go from owing one person to owing another. He had selfish reasons too.

[fridgetothefire]

Reasons like what?

[permutates]

It's complicated.

But I think he wanted people... on his side.

[fridgetothefire]

Who was he fighting? The people who imprisoned you?

[permutates]

No. They were both fighting for something bigger. Something to free all of us.

Charles just thought that locking me up was how to keep me safe. Erik thought I could take care of myself, and that I didn't - that I shouldn't have to pretend to be something I'm not, if I don't want to.

[fridgetothefire]

[She could probably hide her reaction to keep me safe, if she was still in practice, if she were under the relentless pressure she was before. But she doesn't really try, and it twitches out of her, half barely audible scoffing breath, half tiny flinch. It's no less real just because she permits it. It's too close to a quote of a thousand thundered rages; it sticks in her cracks and it hurts.

And then, she has to react to the names, because she won't be able to pretend ignorance. Her eyes widen.]

Wait - Erik and Charles like, here? Those are your friends?

[Nothing hostile, just the surprise of recognition.]

[permutates]

[A nod.] Charles is my brother.

Erik is a friend.

[fridgetothefire]

Erik is...it's complicated.

[She looks away, and this isn't calculated. She doesn't know what she wants to say, doesn't want to seem secretive over things that are common knowledge anyway. Wants to claim Erik as her father, as hers, and at the same doesn't, doesn't want to give those words to Raven first.]

[permutates]

Complicated how?

[Her curiosity is aroused.]

[fridgetothefire]

I'm from a...similar world. He's not the Magneto I knew.

[There's nothing in her voice to suggest what he is to her, neither the closeness of family or the horrors they wrought on each other, neither good or ill. It's fraught, but formlessly so, and Raven can assume what she likes about what the weight of emotion signifies.]

But he's been kind to me when I was. Hurting.

[The word sounds so inadequate. But she can't talk about what Tosh did to this girl. It's too vulnerable, too harrowing and precious at once.]

I'd like to think we're close.

[permutates]

Then I hope we can be friends.

[She really does: that's completely genuine.]

I came up with the name 'Magneto', you know. In my world.

There isn't - I'm not in your world?

[fridgetothefire]

[She smiles, slight and shy, but it's there.]

If you are, I haven't seen you.

[A little light-hearted, a little hey-thems-the-breaks. It's a big world.]

[permutates]

[Well, fair enough.]

What's your name?

...are you a mutant?

[fridgetothefire]

I'm Anya.

[a beat, a nervous breath, sharp fearful/hopeful eyes]

Are you still gonna want to be my friend if I give you the wrong answer?

[permutates]

[An honest shrug.]

I don't know what will happen. I've never had a human friend before.

[fridgetothefire]

[She breathes out and glances away, a soft, resigned huff of air. No, of course not.]

Before I came here, I never had any friends at all. And no, I can't do anything special.

[She keeps the bitterness out of it as much as she can; leaves it blunt and dull.]

[permutates]

Most of my life, I only had Charles.

And he's... he's powerful. He's large. Not physically, I mean - he can just make you disappear, if you're not careful.

[fridgetothefire]

[She knows he's powerful. But he has zero presence, not compared to Magneto enthroned, actual lightning in his hands, obsession crackling off every sinew. One of the only things she has ever really asked of Charles is that he push her harder.

She doesn't know what the first part of Raven's statement has to do with the second. But she knows what it's like to feel as though you aren't really there.]

He ignored you?

[It's like looking at a duck-rabbit illusion, trying to imagine Charles that way. He certainly doesn't see her quite as she wants to be seen, but she can't imagine him wielding the kind of callous dismissal she grew up with.]

[permutates]

He loved me.

[Which is why it's all so hard to explain. The fact that he loved her made it worse. It meant she kept reasoning it out, telling herself that he knew best, and that she should be happy for him whenever he accomplished something new. Whenever he got a little more life, and a little more achievement, and she spent another day smiling at strangers and carrying food and clinging to her control with fear bleating under every movement.]

Sometimes I thought I didn't exist at all, except to him.

[fridgetothefire]

I...don't understand why that's bad.

[She would have given so much, for just one person who treated her like she was real, like she mattered. For her mother to look at her face instead of the ceiling. She can't quite keep the longing out of her voice.

When she and Erik where both telepathic, he got lost in her. Anya cannot be overwhelmed, only shut out, does not drown in anyone but herself. It's not a fear she comprehends.]

[permutates]

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, if he'd -

[Accepted her, as she really was, instead of preferring her the fake way. Needed her back, as much as he apparently needed Erik. She shakes her head.]

I don't know what else to say to explain it.

[fridgetothefire]

You were about to say something.

You don't have to tell me if you don't want. You barely know me, that's fair. But you don't have to lie.

[permutates]

I don't know how. I mean - I don't know what to say. It seems pointless to talk about how it might have been different.

He made me feel like if I wasn't hiding, there was something wrong with me. And he meant it to protect me, but every day it felt like it strangled me a little more.

[fridgetothefire]

Might-have-beens are...kind of a staple around here, actually.

[And then quietly, utterly honest,]

That doesn't sound like love to me.

[permutates]

I know it's not right. That's all I know. Mostly I don't even know whose fault it is.

But I know people can hurt each other even when they care, especially when one is so much more powerful. And I thought that a warden who knows that could maybe be worth something. When I decided to come here.