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strangetrip2017-07-02 12:07 pm
st_opsummoningme) wrote in strangetrip2017-07-02 12:07 pm
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[Log] Illyana & Piotr - семья - Backdated to 7/2
The Rasputin siblings are reunited. It's hardly a warm, fuzzy family reunion, but it's a start.
Piotr stood in the middle of his room staring at the mostly finished canvas and tried to make himself focus. But a few more strokes and a nasty smudge later, he threw his brush out of the open balcony doors and slumped into the love-seat. After hours of work he still couldn't get his painting of the Songrun market to look right. Maybe it was the sub-par materials? Maybe the light in his room? Whatever it was, something was off.
Running his hand through his hair, he winced at the crick in his neck. He was far too tense for someone trapped in a very accommodating prison dimension. Chuckling softly, he forced himself onto his feet. Tomorrow he'd try to relax, get a massage, see Mac, then come back to his art.
Kitty had prepared her for this as best she could. She had detailed for Illyana how to navigate to Piotr's room in the largest of the residential buildings by foot. More importantly, she had given her some idea of what to expect once she met him.
But even if she were so inclined, there would be no gentle way to introduce herself to her brother. The Rasputins were a family forged by bonds of suffering, now as ever.
She banged thrice with the heel of her fist, the slow pound as loud and insistent as a man several times her size might make. The metallic cables of her restraints clattered behind the motions of her hand, stuttering out unevenly after the knocking against the door.
Piotr eyed the door skeptically. He hadn't been expecting anyone, certainly not someone who would knock with such...purpose. But one of the benefits of being nearly indestructible was that unknown visitors weren't all that frightening.
Not bothering to check the peep hole, he opened the door to find...the most beautiful face he'd ever seen. His hand tightened on the door knob instinctivly, bending the metal like butter beneath his fingers.
"Illyana." It wasn't a questions, it was a statement. She was unfathomably different from the child he'd left behind but there was no doubt in his mind. It was her. "Would you like to come in?"
Illyana would never gape. She had been forced at such an early age to learn to control the ways in which her expressions might betray her, show a sign of weakness to be exploited, that it generally took a willful act on her part to emote. That said... Her cold blue eyes did widen, as they trailed down to his hand at the crushed doorknob and back up to stare into his face.
"Kitty said... That you last saw your sister as a child." The words weren't delivered with a tone either hard or cutting - she had chosen them deliberately, but did not wield them with the specific intent to wound. "How did you know me?"
Without taking his eyes off of her, Piotr let go of the mangled hardware and grimaced slightly at the damage. Hopefully, it would fix itself in the night like the rest of the room.
"Katya is correct. You were six when I was exiled." His eyes traced the lines of her face. He'd once tried to sketch out what she might look like as an adult, but that had been a shadow of the woman who stood in front of him now. "I have thought of you every day since. You have grown, but you are not so different that I would not recognize."
Stepping to the side, he made room for her to pass if she wanted to come in from the hallway.
She stood for his inspection, then acknowledged his cue as he stood to one side, coming into the room. It was very... Green, with cheerful flowers worked into the window glass, and several more floral patterns competing for attention between the wallpaper and upholstery. She largely ignored the gaudy garden, moving to fix her gaze rather on the canvas still glistening with fresh paint in the center of the room.
"When I was six," she told Piotr while studying the painting, "I was abducted into another plane by a demon-mage."
He watched her intently as she moved into the room and itched to give her a hug. This certainly wasn't the reunion he'd always envisioned, but a standoffish Illyana was far better than none at all.
Then she spoke and a wave of rage - pure and scorching - flashed through him, his skin turning to steel in response. To think of his precious sister subjected to the whims of a demon-mage was too much for him to process. Katya had told him that he would not like what had happened to his sister, but this was not what he was expecting. "This demon-mage, does he still live?"
It was exactly what she would have expected of her Piotr.
His anger, it was misplaced. He had no concept of who she was now, nor what she had been through. He could not comprehend how impotent his size and strength alone would be when faced with the forces of Limbo.
She also understood his rage was an expression of love. And that it didn't matter to him now, when they were practically strangers. It never had.
"I can't say with any certainty." She turned from the painting to look back at him, all familiar, sculpted steel. "The way to Limbo is closed for now regardless. I only told you because you can't begin to understand who I am without understanding that."
He would not apologize for his anger. Instead, he took a deep breath and attempted to control it. It helped to know that she was not in immediate danger from the monster that had abducted her. After a handful of heartbeats, the metal transitioned back to flesh.
"Thank you for telling me. I...I would like the chance to know you." He got the sense that it would take a very long time for them to understand each other, but it meant something that she was willing to come speak with him. "Are you close with the version of me from your world?"
"No. 'Close' would be the wrong word to describe our relationship." There was a distance between them too great to ever be crossed in full. He had been much older than she when he'd first left the family farm for Xavier's. And then she'd been through Limbo, and come back as someone completely different from the girl he remembered, and it broke his massive heart that he was powerless to fix it. But there was nothing to fix. She was simply changed. It had been easier, better, that they both worked with other teams, fought their own battles, were their own people.
Not to say that she had forgotten him.
"Piotr is my brother," she stated simply, as if that explained everything. "It does not matter how far apart we are, how different our opinions may be, or how many years divide us. Он мой брат," she slid into the same Russian dialect Piotr used. Illyana had come back from Limbo without a discernable accent in any of the other languages she spoke, mundane or magikal. Yet she clearly remembered. "Он мой камень."
As always, hearing his native language was like a weight being lifted off of his mind. He followed suit with a sigh of relief. "Spasibo." It was clear that whatever had transpired between her and her brother had been complicated, and maybe some day she'd tell him more. In the meantime, it warmed his heart to know that through it all, this other version of him had been there for Ilyanna like he never could for his sister. "That is good to hear."
He still had many questions, but the words wouldn't put themselves in the correct order. What could he say? His own guilt and longing would have been baggage enough without literally adding multiple dimensionas. "I think I need alcohol. Would you like a drink?"
The look of torment on Piotr's face was familiar, even if so much of this was unusual. "I would like many drinks," she assured him.
"That is something I can help with." He walked to a side cabinet and pulled out glasses and two bottles of vodka. What could he say? He was a traditionalist. Raising an eyebrow in a wordless question, he held out the cup and bottle. If she was picky or wanted something else, they would need to go downstairs.
She inclined her head as she moved to collect the bottle and cup from him, the line of her bangs shifting slightly across her brow. (Most stereotypes, much like the best lies, were based on at least a grain of truth.) Illyana poured a cup half full for herself and offered him the bottle back. "Does your exile have anything to do with your recent imprisonment?"
"No and yes." He paused to pour a double, swallow it, and fill the glass again. "They were different circumstances but both were rooted in hatred. I was exiled for being gay and imprisoned for being a mutant. I was supposed to be executed each time, but they could not kill me when they tried." A rueful, bitter laugh rumbled from his chest. "And what of you? Those restraints appear to be of X-Men design."
"They are." She lifted her glass for a sip, taking her time in charting the flow of warmth down her throat and waiting for the cables of her shackles to still before she answered him further. She chose her words as if each were barbed, bladed, or otherwise potentially dangerous. Because they were. "When I returned to the earthly plane, I joined an affiliate group of the X-Men called the New Mutants. We lived together and fought together. Kitty and I were roommates." She tended to avoid nostalgia, but it might be valuable for this Piotr to know why she may be closer with Kitty than she was with him.
"The point being that we were allies, and sometimes even friends. But that was years ago, and in more recent history, I manipulated many of the X-Men in the service of the greater good. Regardless of the reasoning behind it, most of them did not appreciate my deception. I could not be held by bars or guards alone, so they determined that more thorough measures were necessary," she gestured at the bulky breastplate.
"Sometimes hard decisions must be made." He was impressed (and proud - though he had no right to be) that his sister was so powerful. He knew a little something about being hard to imprison. "Can Katya get them off of you?"
He didn't even question if she had done the right thing or not. If she could be trusted, or if she was too dangerous to take a chance on the uncertainty of her inhuman moral compass. He had always been so stupid when it came to her. It was uniquely frustrating. "She's trying to figure out how it can be done safely," Illyana explained.
"Good," he nodded. The conversation lapsed into silence for a few seconds, but he didn't really mind. It gave him time to take another drink and try to process all of the emotions he was feeling. Unfortunately, he failed epically at the latter.
Grasping at anything solid, anything uncomplicated, he looked to the unfinished painting she had shown interest in, "Has anyone told you that portals to other worlds open? That is a scene from one of them."
Illyana looked away from him, back at the painting. "You've smudged," was what she made of that.
"Maybe the world was smudged." The words came out in his usual serious tone, despite the absurdity of the statement.
She swallowed from her glass and seemed to continue to examine the painting for some moments. There was a silence of such a shape that it was all but tangible, some mental math in her gaze that defined the many textured surfaces of said silence. But when she turned back to him after a beat, her lips quirked slightly. "Funny," Illyana decided, the admission delivered similarly dry even for the softer line of her mouth.
It was odd that a single word could effect him so profoundly. He almost didn't recognize the emotion, it had become so rare over the last decade. But the hope that that simple moment of levity caused to blossom in his chest was undeniable. Maybe they'd be okay. "Da."
Piotr stood in the middle of his room staring at the mostly finished canvas and tried to make himself focus. But a few more strokes and a nasty smudge later, he threw his brush out of the open balcony doors and slumped into the love-seat. After hours of work he still couldn't get his painting of the Songrun market to look right. Maybe it was the sub-par materials? Maybe the light in his room? Whatever it was, something was off.
Running his hand through his hair, he winced at the crick in his neck. He was far too tense for someone trapped in a very accommodating prison dimension. Chuckling softly, he forced himself onto his feet. Tomorrow he'd try to relax, get a massage, see Mac, then come back to his art.
Kitty had prepared her for this as best she could. She had detailed for Illyana how to navigate to Piotr's room in the largest of the residential buildings by foot. More importantly, she had given her some idea of what to expect once she met him.
But even if she were so inclined, there would be no gentle way to introduce herself to her brother. The Rasputins were a family forged by bonds of suffering, now as ever.
She banged thrice with the heel of her fist, the slow pound as loud and insistent as a man several times her size might make. The metallic cables of her restraints clattered behind the motions of her hand, stuttering out unevenly after the knocking against the door.
Piotr eyed the door skeptically. He hadn't been expecting anyone, certainly not someone who would knock with such...purpose. But one of the benefits of being nearly indestructible was that unknown visitors weren't all that frightening.
Not bothering to check the peep hole, he opened the door to find...the most beautiful face he'd ever seen. His hand tightened on the door knob instinctivly, bending the metal like butter beneath his fingers.
"Illyana." It wasn't a questions, it was a statement. She was unfathomably different from the child he'd left behind but there was no doubt in his mind. It was her. "Would you like to come in?"
Illyana would never gape. She had been forced at such an early age to learn to control the ways in which her expressions might betray her, show a sign of weakness to be exploited, that it generally took a willful act on her part to emote. That said... Her cold blue eyes did widen, as they trailed down to his hand at the crushed doorknob and back up to stare into his face.
"Kitty said... That you last saw your sister as a child." The words weren't delivered with a tone either hard or cutting - she had chosen them deliberately, but did not wield them with the specific intent to wound. "How did you know me?"
Without taking his eyes off of her, Piotr let go of the mangled hardware and grimaced slightly at the damage. Hopefully, it would fix itself in the night like the rest of the room.
"Katya is correct. You were six when I was exiled." His eyes traced the lines of her face. He'd once tried to sketch out what she might look like as an adult, but that had been a shadow of the woman who stood in front of him now. "I have thought of you every day since. You have grown, but you are not so different that I would not recognize."
Stepping to the side, he made room for her to pass if she wanted to come in from the hallway.
She stood for his inspection, then acknowledged his cue as he stood to one side, coming into the room. It was very... Green, with cheerful flowers worked into the window glass, and several more floral patterns competing for attention between the wallpaper and upholstery. She largely ignored the gaudy garden, moving to fix her gaze rather on the canvas still glistening with fresh paint in the center of the room.
"When I was six," she told Piotr while studying the painting, "I was abducted into another plane by a demon-mage."
He watched her intently as she moved into the room and itched to give her a hug. This certainly wasn't the reunion he'd always envisioned, but a standoffish Illyana was far better than none at all.
Then she spoke and a wave of rage - pure and scorching - flashed through him, his skin turning to steel in response. To think of his precious sister subjected to the whims of a demon-mage was too much for him to process. Katya had told him that he would not like what had happened to his sister, but this was not what he was expecting. "This demon-mage, does he still live?"
It was exactly what she would have expected of her Piotr.
His anger, it was misplaced. He had no concept of who she was now, nor what she had been through. He could not comprehend how impotent his size and strength alone would be when faced with the forces of Limbo.
She also understood his rage was an expression of love. And that it didn't matter to him now, when they were practically strangers. It never had.
"I can't say with any certainty." She turned from the painting to look back at him, all familiar, sculpted steel. "The way to Limbo is closed for now regardless. I only told you because you can't begin to understand who I am without understanding that."
He would not apologize for his anger. Instead, he took a deep breath and attempted to control it. It helped to know that she was not in immediate danger from the monster that had abducted her. After a handful of heartbeats, the metal transitioned back to flesh.
"Thank you for telling me. I...I would like the chance to know you." He got the sense that it would take a very long time for them to understand each other, but it meant something that she was willing to come speak with him. "Are you close with the version of me from your world?"
"No. 'Close' would be the wrong word to describe our relationship." There was a distance between them too great to ever be crossed in full. He had been much older than she when he'd first left the family farm for Xavier's. And then she'd been through Limbo, and come back as someone completely different from the girl he remembered, and it broke his massive heart that he was powerless to fix it. But there was nothing to fix. She was simply changed. It had been easier, better, that they both worked with other teams, fought their own battles, were their own people.
Not to say that she had forgotten him.
"Piotr is my brother," she stated simply, as if that explained everything. "It does not matter how far apart we are, how different our opinions may be, or how many years divide us. Он мой брат," she slid into the same Russian dialect Piotr used. Illyana had come back from Limbo without a discernable accent in any of the other languages she spoke, mundane or magikal. Yet she clearly remembered. "Он мой камень."
As always, hearing his native language was like a weight being lifted off of his mind. He followed suit with a sigh of relief. "Spasibo." It was clear that whatever had transpired between her and her brother had been complicated, and maybe some day she'd tell him more. In the meantime, it warmed his heart to know that through it all, this other version of him had been there for Ilyanna like he never could for his sister. "That is good to hear."
He still had many questions, but the words wouldn't put themselves in the correct order. What could he say? His own guilt and longing would have been baggage enough without literally adding multiple dimensionas. "I think I need alcohol. Would you like a drink?"
The look of torment on Piotr's face was familiar, even if so much of this was unusual. "I would like many drinks," she assured him.
"That is something I can help with." He walked to a side cabinet and pulled out glasses and two bottles of vodka. What could he say? He was a traditionalist. Raising an eyebrow in a wordless question, he held out the cup and bottle. If she was picky or wanted something else, they would need to go downstairs.
She inclined her head as she moved to collect the bottle and cup from him, the line of her bangs shifting slightly across her brow. (Most stereotypes, much like the best lies, were based on at least a grain of truth.) Illyana poured a cup half full for herself and offered him the bottle back. "Does your exile have anything to do with your recent imprisonment?"
"No and yes." He paused to pour a double, swallow it, and fill the glass again. "They were different circumstances but both were rooted in hatred. I was exiled for being gay and imprisoned for being a mutant. I was supposed to be executed each time, but they could not kill me when they tried." A rueful, bitter laugh rumbled from his chest. "And what of you? Those restraints appear to be of X-Men design."
"They are." She lifted her glass for a sip, taking her time in charting the flow of warmth down her throat and waiting for the cables of her shackles to still before she answered him further. She chose her words as if each were barbed, bladed, or otherwise potentially dangerous. Because they were. "When I returned to the earthly plane, I joined an affiliate group of the X-Men called the New Mutants. We lived together and fought together. Kitty and I were roommates." She tended to avoid nostalgia, but it might be valuable for this Piotr to know why she may be closer with Kitty than she was with him.
"The point being that we were allies, and sometimes even friends. But that was years ago, and in more recent history, I manipulated many of the X-Men in the service of the greater good. Regardless of the reasoning behind it, most of them did not appreciate my deception. I could not be held by bars or guards alone, so they determined that more thorough measures were necessary," she gestured at the bulky breastplate.
"Sometimes hard decisions must be made." He was impressed (and proud - though he had no right to be) that his sister was so powerful. He knew a little something about being hard to imprison. "Can Katya get them off of you?"
He didn't even question if she had done the right thing or not. If she could be trusted, or if she was too dangerous to take a chance on the uncertainty of her inhuman moral compass. He had always been so stupid when it came to her. It was uniquely frustrating. "She's trying to figure out how it can be done safely," Illyana explained.
"Good," he nodded. The conversation lapsed into silence for a few seconds, but he didn't really mind. It gave him time to take another drink and try to process all of the emotions he was feeling. Unfortunately, he failed epically at the latter.
Grasping at anything solid, anything uncomplicated, he looked to the unfinished painting she had shown interest in, "Has anyone told you that portals to other worlds open? That is a scene from one of them."
Illyana looked away from him, back at the painting. "You've smudged," was what she made of that.
"Maybe the world was smudged." The words came out in his usual serious tone, despite the absurdity of the statement.
She swallowed from her glass and seemed to continue to examine the painting for some moments. There was a silence of such a shape that it was all but tangible, some mental math in her gaze that defined the many textured surfaces of said silence. But when she turned back to him after a beat, her lips quirked slightly. "Funny," Illyana decided, the admission delivered similarly dry even for the softer line of her mouth.
It was odd that a single word could effect him so profoundly. He almost didn't recognize the emotion, it had become so rare over the last decade. But the hope that that simple moment of levity caused to blossom in his chest was undeniable. Maybe they'd be okay. "Da."