strangetrip | [GP / EP] Welcome to the Madonna Inn Expanded Public Library

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[GP / EP] Welcome to the Madonna Inn Expanded Public Library

Freedom from her bonds had given Illyana more than freedom of movement. It had returned to her the use of her magik and her ability to teleport. These abilities had, in turn, allowed her to finish making ready the library for public use. It was less about collecting books and media from around the premises (and some from Limbo, or donated collections harvested from the Otherworlds) and arranging shelving and seating, most of which had been relatively easily done. It was more a matter of laying the appropriate wards, and negotiating the finer points of the old-fashioned catalog and check-out system, which included odd donated items such as sporting equipment and electronic devices available for rental. Xavin's espresso machine counter necessitated a mini-bar refrigerator, glass-domed cake stands for assorted pastries brought in from the kitchen, and various cafe sundries.

Repurposed from what had been the 'Garden Room,' the library space with its high wooden ceilings, chandeliers, and landscape murals over busy floral carpet still looked somewhat like a touristy banquet hall, yet the area was now also highly saturated with layered magic. The hodgepodge collection of random books and so on were fiercely protected by these magics. When needed and as possible, worn volumes had been restored. The books could not be damaged nor marred from here on out, at least not by coffee spills nor page-tearing or inconsiderate attempts at margin notation. Nor would they leave the boundaries of the library area without proper dispensation, simply stopping mid-air and dropping should the attempt be made at the threshold. Ask at the Desk for Assistance With These Items, prompted the signs on several glass display cases featuring certain perhaps unsettling curiosities within - books in arcane languages, skulls from indeterminate creatures, and artifacts such as a green glowing cube suspended on a chain. At said desk, a gleaming service bell sat waiting, should the staff be needed and not clearly present.

Illyana finished affixing the large engraved plaque to the wall beside the double-doors, and then returned to attend the newly opened library with little fanfare:

Madonna Inn Expanded Public Library

Established ~01.25.2018 Earthly Gregorian Calendar

Open All Hours

Volunteer Staff on Duty as Schedules Allow

Classes & Tutoring for Most Subjects Available Upon Request

Donations Encouraged

Disruptive Patrons Will Be Zealously Evicted

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She'd arrived in a uniform. Kitty hadn't had a chance to look at it, see if anything of it was familiar, but now... "When you say the Hand, do the names the Sickly Ones or the Chaste mean anything to you?" It wasn't out of the realm of possibility. It wasn't even implausible. Yana was here. Why shouldn't someone who knew Logan be?

Matt's ex, Elektra, had trained with the Chaste, Maya had learned. That was before the Skrull put an imposter in control of the Hand. Did that mean Kitty was from her world or one really similar? If so, what side had she come down on, during the registration fight?

"I know a little about the Chaste, haven't had direct contact with any of them. Technically. That I know of."

Kitty gestured for Maya to sit if she wanted. It seemed awkward to talk about something so huge with her 'holding court'. If Maya didn't sit, Kitty knew she would stand.

"Quickest way I knew to establish if it was the same Hand," Kitty explained. "I've been on the other side from them a few times. Wolverine, X-Men, Charles Xavier ring any bells for you?"

Maya's ass had barely touched the chair when Kitty started naming names, and then she laughed. "I know that for an angsty loner of manpain, Logan is on more teams than anybody I know. Is that enough of a bell?"

That combination of names, though. "Does that mean you're in with that crowd?" Mutants. Or former mutants. Maya hadn't really kept up with what happened after the Scarlet Witch fiasco, and she and Clint had had better things to talk about.

"'Angsty loner of manpain,'" Kitty repeated and bust out laughing, hard, like she was going to sprain something. She broke off coughing and looked back at Maya. "That's perfect."

She smiled then, glad to have another someone around who knew the people she did. "Yeah. X-Men. Original team. Codename Shadowcat, most of the time. You?"

Kitty's reaction was even better than Maya could have predicted, if she'd thought about it that much, and she laughed along with Kitty, if not as wildly. But at least now they both knew they knew Logan. And came from a timeline that was not completely different. Unless Logan was a constant across worlds, which was possible but a frightening thought.

"They call me Echo." Most of the time, and she'd handed the Ronin mantle on to someone else. "New Avengers. That's the unregistered Avengers, because fuck Stark and registration."

As soon as Maya said 'registration,' Kitty's laughter died on her lips. Visions of Genosha, of the Holocaust, of Petey's story of the camps, crowded her mind and turned amusement to dark, simmering rage.

"When you say Stark and registration, please tell me you don't mean that there's a mutant registration act and Tony Stark is behind it." Because she would kill him if she ever saw him again.

It had sounded like Kitty was from close to the world and time Maya knew, but if she had to ask, maybe not. "Superhuman Registration Act. Stark was very vocally on the pro-registration side of things. Ended up head of SHIELD. Captain America came out against from the very beginning. He was turning himself in, trying to end the fighting, when he was shot and killed.

"I was in Japan during all of this. Getting what I could through the news. I'd made arrangements, a way to ask... a friend for help, if my mission went FUBAR. He couldn't come, but he got word to the underground Avengers – not to be confused with Stark's Avengers – and they got me out. And you must know how it is, solve one problem, there's some other world-ending emergency to be dealt with. So I joined up."

"Fucker," Kitty said tightly, uncontrolled tears gathering in her eyes. She rubbed them away with the back of her wrists. She knew, she knew from Emma's story and Petey's and her own world that it was coming, but staring it in the face was a different thing. Especially hearing how people she knew had taken sides, gotten killed. "So much for never again."

Kitty shook her head. "I worked with Excalibur, and with S.H.I.E.L.D. for awhile. I know how it is."

"I'm sorry," Maya said softly, laying a hand on Kitty's shoulder. She wouldn't tell her just because it happened in Maya's timeline that it would in hers, assuming any of them were able to get back to the world and time they knew. The Trail of Tears. 'Never again' – that was about the Holocaust. Humanity always found another way to divide and control those who were different.

"It was," she sighed. "There were signs things were maybe getting better. If that helps. More than once, the New Avengers weren't arrested, when we could've been, because those on the registration side could put what was right above what was law. Even Stark helped us out in the end, on the last mission before I wound up here." What would have happened after the Invaders got sent home, Maya never got to find out.

"Not really," Kitty said of whether it was better or not. "It still happened and keeps happening." She shook her head. They didn't need to rehash what had happened when a bunch of humans exercised their hate on other humans. "People suck."

Taking a moment to reassemble her usual composure, Kitty put her hand over Maya's briefly in gratitude for the support. "I'm sorry you had to experience and left before you could make it right."

"Me too." Maya wouldn't have been required to register. She didn't have any powers. She didn't have to be out fighting criminals. But first they came for the..., and she was a deaf, Indian costumed vigilante. Opposing registration and standing with those who did was the right thing to do. And a way to remember Cap's legacy.

"But that's why we do what we do, right?" It hadn't been why Maya first donned a costume and took to the streets, but building a better world, protecting the ones who needed protecting, that was a hell of a lot better than vengeance.

"Honestly," Kitty said quietly, a little subdued. "I'd been doing it so long I forgot why. I even tried to have a regular life, go to university, use my brain instead of my mutant abilities to make the world a better place. But the Sentinels came after us there."

She remembered how angry she'd been and felt the impotence of being stuck here that she'd done her best to ignore. "I forgot that 'normal' isn't an option and other people paid for it." Maureen would say it wasn't her fault, but Kitty knew better. "From those to whom much is given, much is expected," she said and it sounded like recitation. "My people have a practice called tikkun olam. It means to heal the world. So, yeah. Long way around, it is why we do it."

This was part of Kitty's story, and her people's story, and Maya accepted it and the gift of Kitty sharing with her. She sat with its truth, adding it to other wisdom she'd been shown.

"The first time I put on a costume and went out into the night to fight, it was out of vengeance." Turned away from its true target by a lie that could have ended with a good man killed. "I found it, not where I was looking, but it didn't fill the hole inside me. I went on a vision quest, in the ways of my people, and realized – we have the power within us, all of us, to plant something positive in the hearts of those who need it."

The small smile had hints of some private amusement, that deepened when she decided to share. "A realization that came to me in a lightning flash and Logan's fists."

Maya's stillness was what caught hold of Kitty as much as her words. She had a way of being right there in the moment, a mindfulness that reminded her of no one so much as the cantor who'd sat with her during shiva for her father. It was hard now as it had been then to let the wisdom of it seep into her, when hurt and rage were the more powerful emotions.

She was still finding her way to accepting it when Maya's expression offered up a smile. That, she had no trouble letting in or answering with an echoing smile. "I hope you gave his inspiration right back to him."

It hadn't happened exactly that way, the order was wrong, but for story it felt true. "Oh yes I did. And would again too."

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[GP / EP] Welcome to the Madonna Inn Expanded Public Library

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