permutates | 5th transformation . spam & open video

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5th transformation . spam & open video

[ spam ]

[ She's been working herself hard. Maybe too hard: she spends hours a day in the gym, sometimes as many as eight when she's not sleeping. She's read books on how to get in shape quickly and safely - more or less - and she's pushing herself as far as she can go. Trying to find her limits.

Today, she can also be found coming out of the CTS with Kelsier, bruised and mussed and a little bloody, and grinning ear to ear. If you're trying to impress me, it's working, he tells her, and she kisses him on the cheek and flushes bluer and makes her way to the Infirmary to make sure she's got nothing worse than bruises.

She hasn't reached her physical limits yet, but emotional is a different story. Being a child again, with that faith in Charles, has shaken her. Her conversation with Charles before that shook her. And sometimes, even when she's feeling fine - maybe when she's feeling the most fine, paradoxically - she starts crying. And sometimes she can't stop. Tucking herself into a corner of the gardens and trying to muffle the sounds of it so no one catches her at it. It's embarrassing, and she can always eventually manage to pull herself together and make it back to her room. ]

[ video ; open ]

[ Raven is blue, with red hair, not hiding. ]

What's something you've done here, for the first time? Or thought or realized, for the first time.

[ She's not sure what she's looking for. Maybe a little hope. ]

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[He was coming to see Ivy; this is usually his first stop, rather than her cabin, when he's of a mind to talk. But it's the sounds of crying that catches his attention before he finds her - and he's certain he'll never see Ivy cry. So he's hesitant, when he goes looking.

Pushing a branch gently aside, he spots her and hesitates, abruptly bewildered and uncertain. She's crying. Why is she crying? Walking away now would look terrible, though, so he reluctantly takes a step forward, then another, and slowly sits himself down beside her.]

Are you all right?

[He wants to make sure she's not hurt first, though he doubts it and his tone reflects it.]

I'm - I - fine.

[ This is an absolute and utter lie, broken by hiccup-y sobs, and a completely ineffective one. It's not really intended to convince Erik. Just give him a way out.

The last thing she wants is someone to feel obligated to comfort her, when she doesn't even really know why she's crying. ]

[It's a terrible way out, and he wouldn't take it even if it was good. Instead he sits there in silence, for a moment - then extends his arm to settle around her shoulders. He doesn't know what to do, precisely, but he can offer that.]

[ This is the best and worst thing that he could have done. She leans into him, and thinks about Charles, and she sobs. This isn't the side of her that she wants to show to Erik. She wants to be strong - be Mystique. Mutant and proud. Not a little girl who cries ugly, blocky sobs. She covers her eyes with her hand, presses her face into the curve of his shoulder. Erik, the first person who ever made her feel right in her own skin.

She keeps breathing, though, and eventually the sobs trail into little sniffles. She doesn't know what to say. ]

[He lets her lean, lets her cry, and strokes her hair with one hand. He doesn't say a word, doesn't judge her or mock her or tell her to grow up and get control of herself.

In all honesty, it's almost comforting to see that she seems to be having as hard a time of things as Charles. Not that he likes seeing either of them upset.

When she starts to quiet, when the sobs die down, he tilts his head to glance at her, still running his fingers over her head, through her hair.]

What is it?

I don't know. A lot of things.

[ She doesn't know how honest she wants to be with him, and that, too, upsets her. ]

You probably know already.

[He almost makes a joke - I can't read your mind - and things better of it.]

Do you want to talk about them? [He probably knows, but that's not fair to her - and he's always tried to be fair to her.]

[ A long hesitation. She bites the inside of her cheek. ]

I think horrible things sometimes.

[He has to smile just a bit at that.]

You wouldn't be the first. [He leaves it open, a silent invitation to tell him that those things are, if she wants. God knows he's had his share of horrible thoughts.]

Charles hurt me so much, and sometimes I hate him for it, and I think he deserved to be left behind. And sometimes I think that everything that's good in me came from him, and I can't ever repay him for that because there's not enough of me left.

[ She wipes away some more tears. ]

He was so good to me. So maybe there's just something wrong with me.

There's nothing wrong with you.

[Of everything she's said, he feels that's the important part. That's the thing she needs to know. His hand drops to the back of her neck, and he kneads lightly with his fingers.]

He didn't make you, Raven. He didn't make you good, or bad, and I know he never meant to hurt you. You're just yourself, and there's nothing wrong with that.

That's it: he never meant to. He meant the best. So that makes it better, right?

[ No. In her mind, it makes it much worse, because she doesn't have any enemy to fight. She doesn't have someone to push away and feel good about. ]

It makes it harder. But not worse. [Because he knows worse, he really does, but he understands that doesn't mean this is easy for her.]

I don't know how to feel anymore.

[ She's drained. Exhausted and just sad, now, but the gentle kind of sad, not the violent, upset kind. ]

It's always opposites. When I'm happy, I'm sad. When I'm calm, I'm still angry. When I'm angry, I feel better - but only for a little while.

I used to be angry all the time. [Every waking hour, he'd hold that anger so close to his chest. It was exhausting, but it got him through. He didn't know there was another way, then.] I thought it made me strong. It was Charles who made me realize I could be strong without it.

I owe him for that. [He keeps his eyes on her, because the rest of that is that he can owe but not be lost in the debt.]

How do you feel right now?

We'll be here all day if I say all the things I feel.

Then we'll be here all day.

You're serious.

I usually am.

I don't know, Erik. I - Where do I start?

Anywhere. Though the beginning is usually a good place. [He gives her a small, wry smile.] I spent a long time moving forward with no one to talk to. [And he's so used to that now, but...] But there were times I wished I had someone to talk to. [A pause] Or talk at.

At the beginning.

You mean the day I woke up blue?

If that's where you want.

I don't.

I don't ever want to talk about that.

[ This, at least, is firm truth. And if that's a truth, it's a place to start. ]

When Charles rescued me, it was like a fairy tale. I was alone for... it wasn't a full year. More than six months before I met him. I don't remember exactly how long. [ She doesn't want to remember. ] I felt like the orphaned princess finding a home.

I used to imagine getting married to him. I didn't really understand what it meant, back then. I just thought it was like being with him forever.

So I stayed with him. He was the most important person in the world to me. I moved to England with him. But he... he had friends. He had girls. And I didn't have anything, and whenever I would try, he would just remind me, all the time, how dangerous it was. I worked, as a waitress, so I'd have something to do during the day, but eventually I stopped really trying. I was proud of him, really, but he was becoming so much larger than I was. So much more important. He was someone people listened to, and if I was anything, I was a footnote. To him.

[ Her voice is tighter, now. More distressed. ]

And then we found everyone. I was so glad. For the first time, it wouldn't be dangerous to have friends.

But Hank only cared as long as I was beautiful. And you were the first one who made me feel - [ She's starting to choke on the words. ] Like I deserved to be someone, me, not what I was pretending to be. You were the first one who ever made me feel that way. And you knew it, didn't you?

[He doesn't push; it's fair, and it's her choice, because he can't imagine a time when he will want to tell her about the ways he discovered he was different. Some truths can be universal.

Instead, Erik listens, silent, though something dark crosses his features by the end. Hank was wrong, Hank was horribly wrong, and it still leaves him frustrated and angry that they thought, even for a moment, that they needed to fit in with the wider world. To disappear into it.

Pressing his lips together in a tight line, Erik settles his hand on her shoulder. He has to think back, think past what he knows now to what he knew then. Thinks past understanding what it was like for Charles to understand what it was like for her. His experience was different and similar to them both, in certain ways, and it isn't difficult.]

I had an inkling. [He breathes in slowly, because this is so important to him, and she deserves better than listening to him fall into a rant.] We shouldn't have to hide. But we can't ignore what the world is like, either. I know he did what he did to protect you both, but he should have seen what was happening more clearly. He knows that.

You're capable of so much more than just fitting in with them. You're remarkable. And you were the most comfortable with your mutation by the time the training started, so while he saw to the boys--

[He made sure she had someone, too. Because he knew he'd need her when they went after Shaw.] Someone had to make sure you had the same opportunity.

[A beat] And you are beautiful, Raven, whatever Hank has to say. You're beautiful just the way you are.