Raven Darkholme | Mystique (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
permutates) wrote2013-10-20 11:29 am
permutates) wrote2013-10-20 11:29 am
Entry tags:
video . 9th transformation
[ private to anya, earlier ]
I heard that you were Magneto's daughter.
I guess I think you should know that I know.
[ public, later ]
[ The camera shows the teaching annexe, swings past a few doors and settles on a stretch of wall where - well, there's a door. And beyond is a place where something should probably be. Should definitely be, for anyone who knows the location of the ice rink. Instead, there's a block of blank concrete, behind the open door. ]
The rink is gone.
[ She's heard the voices, over the speakers. She sounds shaky. ]
What's happening?
I heard that you were Magneto's daughter.
I guess I think you should know that I know.
[ public, later ]
[ The camera shows the teaching annexe, swings past a few doors and settles on a stretch of wall where - well, there's a door. And beyond is a place where something should probably be. Should definitely be, for anyone who knows the location of the ice rink. Instead, there's a block of blank concrete, behind the open door. ]
The rink is gone.
[ She's heard the voices, over the speakers. She sounds shaky. ]
What's happening?
private
He's missed this. A lot. And while there's a part of him that's wondering if this is just her attempt at making him happy, of convincing him that she wants to be the friend she thinks he wants her to be, he can't help it. He actually sort of wants to lean on her.]
Do you want me to?
private
She is silent at his question, and then she nods, leaning her head sideways back on him.
Her mind is different than it used to be. Once, it was volatile as a volcano, but it was bursts of desperate happiness, enthusiasm, held in check by fear. Now, it has boundaries, slim and permeable and tough like a membrane. But she lets him inside.
The surface of her thoughts is a sort of controlled chaos, like a school of fish scattering in different directions, twitched this way and that by currents, but coming together in long and sweeping movements. She is feeling a lot of things, fear and distrust, confidence and anger, and love. She hates herself, hates her mutation, loves her mutation, is starting to believe she is really beautiful. (Her skin softly rustles to blue against his.)
I want to communicate, is the thought that she lets drift to dominance. Not truly words, but an idea, of opening to something that words have, thus far, proved painfully inadequate to satisfy. She wants to hear him, and she tugs, gently, at his mental touch. ]
private
Alright, he thinks, and he lets the tentative connection get a little stronger, although it's more like he's resting his hand on the surface of a pond, not quite breaching it or diving in. But there's contact, and it's firm and present, even if he's still respecting her boundaries. I don't know where to start.]
private
She closes her eyes, and she pulls up, within her, and old spool like a movie reel. Memories crowded together and wound tight. Christmases; birthdays; the cold touch of snow. Dangling her legs through the columns of the bannister and watching people move from above. Curling up in a big, soft bed; running in bare feet over soft grass. Charles isn't directly in any of these memories, there's not a glimpse of his face, but he is there, just the same. There is an overwhelming feeling of his presence, loving and protecting and beloved. Brother. Charles, Charles, Charles, like the soft smells of apple and cinnamon that spread through an empty house when a pie is baking. ]
private
He shifts carefully, not trying to pull away, but reorient himself so he can put his head on her shoulder, curling into her and trying not to just break down and sob. It's because he's relieved more than anything else, and he doesn't have it in him right now to be embarrassed about looking for comfort from his little sister.]
Re: private
Welling up with the rest - there's ugliness, too. Resentment and anger. Simmering, seething anger at the rest of humankind. But Raven faces it without flinching. She acknowledges this is a part of herself. She is ugly things, too.
It doesn't mean she doesn't love him. And it doesn't mean she doesn't want to comfort him now. Because she does. It doesn't even mean she loves him any less. Her feelings confuse and disorient her, and the root of it is all of that terrible, terrible anger. Anger she's always been afraid of. Not like Erik, who used it. She hid it. She always hides.
This is her. This is all her, and she aches to be loved for it, in spite of it, because of it. Like being loved might take it all away.
Her hand strokes through his hair.
Inside her, there's still that child.
You aren't... afraid of me?
He didn't just help her bury it. Help her hide. He helped her heal. She wouldn't be who she is without him. But she would still be someone. And that was something that she had to know.
And now she tries to tell him, without the words: that the Barge gave her a chance for this. That it hurt him, but maybe it could fix them. And maybe, with that, she could help fix him back. She's starting to believe in this, and it feels strange and foreign and uncomfortable, and gentle and calm, too. She wants to help. She wants to love him again. ]
private
He hates this place because it's done so much damage to him and the people he loves, but it gave him a second chance with Erik and now with Raven, something he'd never thought was possible back home, and he's confused and angry and grateful all at once.
She didn't hate him. She didn't think he'd only tried to hurt her, that even now, he wanted her to be something that she wasn't, and he projects that he loves her, even when she's angry and confused, that it's alright to be both of those things. Anger is just another emotion, and it's perfectly fine to feel it in response to injustice, or fear or hurt. He just doesn't want her to let it destroy her, but he'll always, always love her, and he wants to make sure she knows that.
Erik might be the other half of his soul, and they might both have a larger sense of the word "family" than they did before they met him and the others, but Raven was still his sister, the person he'd grown up with and cherished and been frustrated by and fiercely loved. That was a bond that would always be special and unique and utterly irreplaceable, and he wants nothing more than to find some middle ground again. He missed her.]
private
A soft shift, and what she's wearing - "wearing", since she's been forming her clothes herself half the time these days - changes to soft cotton, better for soaking up tears. She's getting good at this. Really, really good. And she's proud of it, too.
Proud of him, comes the thought connected with that. For graduating inmates, for staying by Erik's side. He's so good. And she doesn't think the Barge changed that - for all that he is different now, he is still good. ]
oh this has been spam for a while whoops
Eventually, he manages a sort of stuffy sniff and scrubs his hand over his eyes, trying to pull himself together.
He still isn't pulling away from her, though.]
I'm sorry. Thank you, for sharing that with me.
[And although she's given him permission to be honest and open with his powers with her, there's still a wall that's gone up, keeping the dark memories safely tucked away from where she can see them. "Talking" is easier than just filtering everything across.] I am glad that we've been given this chance, Raven. I just wish it could have happened another way. I'm afraid of what's coming, and I don't want you hurt the same way we have been.
[There's a flicker of something - a memory - but he nudges it aside quickly. This has to be different.]
no subject
At least here she doesn't have to pretend, and that's what she settles on, in her mind-answer. She doesn't have to pretend, and that is of immense value to her.
She brushes her hair back from his forehead. We'll be okay, she thinks, and she says, out loud: ]
You need a haircut.
[ Getting a little shaggy there, Charles. ]