st_ackeddeck (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
st_ackeddeck) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
strangetrip2018-01-27 03:45 pm
st_ackeddeck) wrote in strangetrip2018-01-27 03:45 pm
Entry tags:
[log] Grumpy Cat and Not-A-Mouse: Illyana and Emma
Two mutants. A love for Dani Moonstar. Good food. Armchair philosophy. As first meetings go, Emma meeting this Illyana could have gone worse.
Cooking had only ever interested Illyana insofar as preparing a food so that it became safely edible. She knew how to judge the character of any number of shades of demon flesh to determine if it was ready to take off of the spit. She knew better than to eat unknown berries. She knew how to tell good water from bad, and how to boil it if needs must. Cooking in the manner that she smelled wafting from the kitchen as she approached to break her sleeping fast - savory, fatty, rich with flavor and seasoning - had never seemed worth the trouble of learning in place of other skills.
The blond stood in the doorway to the kitchen, inhaling deeply as she examined the quiet, pale woman with long red hair. "Your food smells good," she told the woman plainly.
KItty had told Emma there was an Illyana here, and Emma had meant to talk to the sorceress eventually. She just hadn't gotten around to it yet. To be fair, the Illyana she knew had little time or patience for conversation without a purpose, and since it didn't sound like they were from the same reality, there hadn't been an obvious point to Emma seeking her out. At least that was what she told herself, when Illyana walked in. "Thanks. It's quiche. The spinach and artichoke and the mushroom and shallot should be ready in a couple of minutes, if you want some." She was in the middle of making several, quiche being easy to heat up a slice when someone was hungry. She'd started with the vegetarian options, and was currently frying bacon in one pan, and thinly sliced beef and onions in another, for meatier versions.
"Food can be more than just fuel, and Dani likes to say cooking is meditation. Dani Moonstar."
There was little sense in them intentionally poisoning one another within their closed environment, and the woman seemed confident in her cooking, so Illyana was inclined to eat the food that had already been prepared. (It had smelled appetizing.) But the negotiations surrounding the food mattered less to her than the name that had been mentioned, and Illyana lifted her chin as she studied the cook more closely.
"You claim to know Dani Moonstar." A statement - perhaps even a challenge - rather than a question. "Are you a mutant?"
"I know a Dani Moonstar," Emma clarified, not surprised by the hint of challenge in this Illyana's tone. "And an Illyana Rasputina. Marie-Ange Colbert, but most people call me Emma. I'm a precog with psi projections."
The currently present version of Illyana huff-hummed a sound of dry acknowledgment. It would be a strange lie if it was a lie. Alternate-world variations on a given individual were hardly a new experience for seasoned X-men.
The blonde committed herself to the kitchen in full, entering and moving to examine Marie-Ange's progress with the bacon and beef respectively. She folded her arms loosely across her chest, from far enough not to impede the process.
She supposed that the socially correct thing to do would be to welcome the new resident and learn about her. But the truth was that Illyana cared more about the mention of the woman that had taken her into the New Mutants and watched over her like a dysfunctional, potentially dangerous little sister. If Kitty had been her first friend after escaping Limbo, Dani had been the first earthly authority figure that Illyana had both loved and respected. "How do you know Dani?"
"She's family." Not by blood, but in every way that mattered to Emma, or to Dani. "And my friend. She's been my teacher for a couple of years, but before that, after the Mutant Registration Act passed, she got me and my cousin out of the States." And Dare, but Dani wouldn't have brought him up, so Emma didn't either, keeping memories of him to herself. Dani was also probably the only person who could hold Pyro together now, and Emma held onto that hope.
Then, in a moment of courage, probably inspired by the subject of their conversation, or because it was a distraction from worrying about Pyro, "How do you know Dani?"
It did sound like Dani. Illyana didn't recognize the redhead or her name, but that wasn't enough reason to discredit what she'd said out of hand. Though if Emma had known an iteration of her, they clearly hadn't been close.
The cool blue gaze thrust from the frying pan to Emma, impassively staring at the freckled face as if deciding what to make of it. "She brought me into the New Mutants. We were affiliated with the X-men." If Emma recognized it or not, that had amounted to essentially the same thing. Teacher. Friend. Family.
Based on smell alone, Emma was reaching for the towel over her shoulder before the timer went off to take the quiches from the oven. She nodded that she'd heard Illyana. If she didn't hear the unspoken part, she was close enough. There were reasons Dani had a psi bond with Illyana at home, reasons that had started because Illyana had known a different Dani before. "The X-men are... the ones still in the US are mostly in hiding. But most of them are in Scotland now, with Excalibur. But Dani's not on the team. She Danis in other ways."
"Of course she does." Even when had Dani lost her powers, she was valuable to the New Mutants. But it was also an alternate world scenario that didn't seem to have much bearing on their present circumstances. Illyana moved to address the more immediate concern of locating a plate and fork for herself. "Have your cooking meditations revealed to you your purpose in this unusual place?"
Emma moved the bacon to some paper towels to drain, and added the beef and onions to a crust she'd parbaked earlier. Grated provolone and the egg custard should have completed the filling, but on impulse she added a bit of the crumbled bacon. "So far, cooking seems like my only purpose here." Which wasn't what Illyana was asking, but that was the way it felt. Not that that was a new feeling. She hadn't been much use in Duninnean either, except sometimes with her cooking. "But as for why I'm here, or why any of us are, cooking hasn't given me any more clarity than my cards."
Illyana snorted softly at that, selecting a knife from a block and moving to where she could cut herself a slice of the finished quiche. "You don't think your purpose would have to do with your precognitive or psionic capabilities?" Cooks were hardly exceptional. Any of them could have been plucked in place of Marie-Ange. But how many had her more specialized skills?
Of course Emma had considered that. After being grabbed simply for being a mutant, it was the first thought she'd had, and one she hadn't dismissed. But. "I did say 'so far'," she pointed out. "And my precognitive capabilities haven't shown a threat or need related to my powers, in any of the spreads I've done since I got here. It would seem the most obvious, though, except I don't think everybody here has mutant or magic or similar gifts. If there is a plan behing who gets brought here, so far it just seems cruel. From what I've seen. Or Seen."
"If there is a plan to those that are chosen to be here and when they stay, you haven't 'seen' it at all." It might sound like a repetition of what had just been said, but Illyana was making a distinction as she placed a skinny portion of both different quiches onto her plate. "You don't know the shape or purpose of it. You can't objectively determine that it's cruel if you don't understand exactly what is happening and why. Pain seems like a cruelty of biology when we experience it, yet it enables us to sustain our lives." She cut herself a bite with the side of her fork. "Although I'm not convinced there is such an exacting plan at work."
Sometimes it was easy to see why Illyana and Sabine had gotten along so well. Emma wasn't sure there was a plan behind it either. That was why she was careful to use qualifiers when she wasn't sure of something. "Cruelty and kindness aren't mutually exclusive, though. Or objective. Intention and experience are separate and subjective." She sprinkled a bit more cheese over the tops of the new quiche before putting them in the oven.
"Maybe I should have said my cooking meditations weren't meant to explore my purpose here, but then we wouldn't have touched on why we're here or the nature of cruelty."
Illyana made a face at that, as if she'd tasted something she disliked. "Once you accept that everything is separate and subjective, any meaningful discussion of determinate values has been aborted. Not all opinions can be equal - and some are aggressively stupid." She blew across the bite on her fork, then sampled a mouthful of the hot quiche, savoring it for a long moment. "Good eggs though."
"You're still turning my statements into absolutes," Emma countered, as she cut a slice of mushroom quiche for herself. "I didn't say everything was separate and subjective, or that all opinions are equal." Her brain, and her powers, worked on patterns and symbolism, and it was habit to come up with analogies to explain herself. "If I read the cards and Saw bad things ahead, you'd say it would be cruel to keep known facts from the person they'd affect. Other people might find it cruel to tell them of future events they couldn't change. What I should do if I want to be kind and how the other person would interpret it change depending on who and what."
"And your logic gets muddier the more you stomp around in it." The woman was asserting unfounded premises, using vague language, and then telling Illyana not to deal in absolutes. Technical argument demanded clarity, exactitude, groundwork, even if your argument allowed that certain factors could not be known. Illyana wasn't going to waste the day trying to beat rhetoric into nor out of the redhead, and she showed no sign of expanding on her reply.
"Psi brains work differently from other people's." When in doubt, fall back on Dani's wisdom, with a touch of Wicked's edge. "The same can probably be said of limbo-trained sorceresses, but as that keeps us firmly in subjective territory, I'll just agree that the eggs are good."
Illyana gave her a critical look, nonverbally expressing her refusal that 'our brains are all different' was an excuse to do away with reason, but she still had quiche to eat. "Perhaps you've already found your purpose here," she determined after another bite.
Illyana unimpressed was status normal, and not nearly as fearsome as Dani when Emma put herself or her abilities down, or when she didn't stand up for her own arguments. It was good to remind herself of that. "What purpose do you think that is?"
The blonde thought that it should be rather obvious given the context of their conversation. But she demonstrated her meaning in a different manner, taking up a clean fork to trim off a bite of the serving of quiche that Emma hadn't attended yet, then spearing it and holding it out for the woman to sample. "Stop introspecting and taste this."
With Sabine or Dani, Emma might have said I told you so, but with Illyana she would count the win internally. She took the fork – neither of them meant for Illyana to actually feed her the bite of quiche – the tiniest hint of a grin flicking at her lips before they parted so she could taste her latest creation. It was as good as usual. Not really a surprise when she'd been making this recipe since she had to kneel on a chair pulled up to the kitchen counter to help Mémé. "I'm cooking at least part of most days. If you decide you want something other than chicken."
"One cannot live on chicken alone," Illyana stated soberly, returning her attention to finishing her own plate.
As Illyana saw it, this Emma could be functional, useful to herself and the others at the Inn, so long as she pursued self-improvement in a meaningful way. Utility and development were what mattered, not the exact specialization, and self-doubt was a waste of time and energy. (Visions wherein you died of malnutrition would do little for your survival if you were unable to change the outcome.)
For any other armchair philosophy that she wished to engage in, that potential realized was valuable. This 'Emma' could be valuable, as she most likely had been judged as such by Dani Moonstar. But only if she willfully chose that path for herself.
Cooking had only ever interested Illyana insofar as preparing a food so that it became safely edible. She knew how to judge the character of any number of shades of demon flesh to determine if it was ready to take off of the spit. She knew better than to eat unknown berries. She knew how to tell good water from bad, and how to boil it if needs must. Cooking in the manner that she smelled wafting from the kitchen as she approached to break her sleeping fast - savory, fatty, rich with flavor and seasoning - had never seemed worth the trouble of learning in place of other skills.
The blond stood in the doorway to the kitchen, inhaling deeply as she examined the quiet, pale woman with long red hair. "Your food smells good," she told the woman plainly.
KItty had told Emma there was an Illyana here, and Emma had meant to talk to the sorceress eventually. She just hadn't gotten around to it yet. To be fair, the Illyana she knew had little time or patience for conversation without a purpose, and since it didn't sound like they were from the same reality, there hadn't been an obvious point to Emma seeking her out. At least that was what she told herself, when Illyana walked in. "Thanks. It's quiche. The spinach and artichoke and the mushroom and shallot should be ready in a couple of minutes, if you want some." She was in the middle of making several, quiche being easy to heat up a slice when someone was hungry. She'd started with the vegetarian options, and was currently frying bacon in one pan, and thinly sliced beef and onions in another, for meatier versions.
"Food can be more than just fuel, and Dani likes to say cooking is meditation. Dani Moonstar."
There was little sense in them intentionally poisoning one another within their closed environment, and the woman seemed confident in her cooking, so Illyana was inclined to eat the food that had already been prepared. (It had smelled appetizing.) But the negotiations surrounding the food mattered less to her than the name that had been mentioned, and Illyana lifted her chin as she studied the cook more closely.
"You claim to know Dani Moonstar." A statement - perhaps even a challenge - rather than a question. "Are you a mutant?"
"I know a Dani Moonstar," Emma clarified, not surprised by the hint of challenge in this Illyana's tone. "And an Illyana Rasputina. Marie-Ange Colbert, but most people call me Emma. I'm a precog with psi projections."
The currently present version of Illyana huff-hummed a sound of dry acknowledgment. It would be a strange lie if it was a lie. Alternate-world variations on a given individual were hardly a new experience for seasoned X-men.
The blonde committed herself to the kitchen in full, entering and moving to examine Marie-Ange's progress with the bacon and beef respectively. She folded her arms loosely across her chest, from far enough not to impede the process.
She supposed that the socially correct thing to do would be to welcome the new resident and learn about her. But the truth was that Illyana cared more about the mention of the woman that had taken her into the New Mutants and watched over her like a dysfunctional, potentially dangerous little sister. If Kitty had been her first friend after escaping Limbo, Dani had been the first earthly authority figure that Illyana had both loved and respected. "How do you know Dani?"
"She's family." Not by blood, but in every way that mattered to Emma, or to Dani. "And my friend. She's been my teacher for a couple of years, but before that, after the Mutant Registration Act passed, she got me and my cousin out of the States." And Dare, but Dani wouldn't have brought him up, so Emma didn't either, keeping memories of him to herself. Dani was also probably the only person who could hold Pyro together now, and Emma held onto that hope.
Then, in a moment of courage, probably inspired by the subject of their conversation, or because it was a distraction from worrying about Pyro, "How do you know Dani?"
It did sound like Dani. Illyana didn't recognize the redhead or her name, but that wasn't enough reason to discredit what she'd said out of hand. Though if Emma had known an iteration of her, they clearly hadn't been close.
The cool blue gaze thrust from the frying pan to Emma, impassively staring at the freckled face as if deciding what to make of it. "She brought me into the New Mutants. We were affiliated with the X-men." If Emma recognized it or not, that had amounted to essentially the same thing. Teacher. Friend. Family.
Based on smell alone, Emma was reaching for the towel over her shoulder before the timer went off to take the quiches from the oven. She nodded that she'd heard Illyana. If she didn't hear the unspoken part, she was close enough. There were reasons Dani had a psi bond with Illyana at home, reasons that had started because Illyana had known a different Dani before. "The X-men are... the ones still in the US are mostly in hiding. But most of them are in Scotland now, with Excalibur. But Dani's not on the team. She Danis in other ways."
"Of course she does." Even when had Dani lost her powers, she was valuable to the New Mutants. But it was also an alternate world scenario that didn't seem to have much bearing on their present circumstances. Illyana moved to address the more immediate concern of locating a plate and fork for herself. "Have your cooking meditations revealed to you your purpose in this unusual place?"
Emma moved the bacon to some paper towels to drain, and added the beef and onions to a crust she'd parbaked earlier. Grated provolone and the egg custard should have completed the filling, but on impulse she added a bit of the crumbled bacon. "So far, cooking seems like my only purpose here." Which wasn't what Illyana was asking, but that was the way it felt. Not that that was a new feeling. She hadn't been much use in Duninnean either, except sometimes with her cooking. "But as for why I'm here, or why any of us are, cooking hasn't given me any more clarity than my cards."
Illyana snorted softly at that, selecting a knife from a block and moving to where she could cut herself a slice of the finished quiche. "You don't think your purpose would have to do with your precognitive or psionic capabilities?" Cooks were hardly exceptional. Any of them could have been plucked in place of Marie-Ange. But how many had her more specialized skills?
Of course Emma had considered that. After being grabbed simply for being a mutant, it was the first thought she'd had, and one she hadn't dismissed. But. "I did say 'so far'," she pointed out. "And my precognitive capabilities haven't shown a threat or need related to my powers, in any of the spreads I've done since I got here. It would seem the most obvious, though, except I don't think everybody here has mutant or magic or similar gifts. If there is a plan behing who gets brought here, so far it just seems cruel. From what I've seen. Or Seen."
"If there is a plan to those that are chosen to be here and when they stay, you haven't 'seen' it at all." It might sound like a repetition of what had just been said, but Illyana was making a distinction as she placed a skinny portion of both different quiches onto her plate. "You don't know the shape or purpose of it. You can't objectively determine that it's cruel if you don't understand exactly what is happening and why. Pain seems like a cruelty of biology when we experience it, yet it enables us to sustain our lives." She cut herself a bite with the side of her fork. "Although I'm not convinced there is such an exacting plan at work."
Sometimes it was easy to see why Illyana and Sabine had gotten along so well. Emma wasn't sure there was a plan behind it either. That was why she was careful to use qualifiers when she wasn't sure of something. "Cruelty and kindness aren't mutually exclusive, though. Or objective. Intention and experience are separate and subjective." She sprinkled a bit more cheese over the tops of the new quiche before putting them in the oven.
"Maybe I should have said my cooking meditations weren't meant to explore my purpose here, but then we wouldn't have touched on why we're here or the nature of cruelty."
Illyana made a face at that, as if she'd tasted something she disliked. "Once you accept that everything is separate and subjective, any meaningful discussion of determinate values has been aborted. Not all opinions can be equal - and some are aggressively stupid." She blew across the bite on her fork, then sampled a mouthful of the hot quiche, savoring it for a long moment. "Good eggs though."
"You're still turning my statements into absolutes," Emma countered, as she cut a slice of mushroom quiche for herself. "I didn't say everything was separate and subjective, or that all opinions are equal." Her brain, and her powers, worked on patterns and symbolism, and it was habit to come up with analogies to explain herself. "If I read the cards and Saw bad things ahead, you'd say it would be cruel to keep known facts from the person they'd affect. Other people might find it cruel to tell them of future events they couldn't change. What I should do if I want to be kind and how the other person would interpret it change depending on who and what."
"And your logic gets muddier the more you stomp around in it." The woman was asserting unfounded premises, using vague language, and then telling Illyana not to deal in absolutes. Technical argument demanded clarity, exactitude, groundwork, even if your argument allowed that certain factors could not be known. Illyana wasn't going to waste the day trying to beat rhetoric into nor out of the redhead, and she showed no sign of expanding on her reply.
"Psi brains work differently from other people's." When in doubt, fall back on Dani's wisdom, with a touch of Wicked's edge. "The same can probably be said of limbo-trained sorceresses, but as that keeps us firmly in subjective territory, I'll just agree that the eggs are good."
Illyana gave her a critical look, nonverbally expressing her refusal that 'our brains are all different' was an excuse to do away with reason, but she still had quiche to eat. "Perhaps you've already found your purpose here," she determined after another bite.
Illyana unimpressed was status normal, and not nearly as fearsome as Dani when Emma put herself or her abilities down, or when she didn't stand up for her own arguments. It was good to remind herself of that. "What purpose do you think that is?"
The blonde thought that it should be rather obvious given the context of their conversation. But she demonstrated her meaning in a different manner, taking up a clean fork to trim off a bite of the serving of quiche that Emma hadn't attended yet, then spearing it and holding it out for the woman to sample. "Stop introspecting and taste this."
With Sabine or Dani, Emma might have said I told you so, but with Illyana she would count the win internally. She took the fork – neither of them meant for Illyana to actually feed her the bite of quiche – the tiniest hint of a grin flicking at her lips before they parted so she could taste her latest creation. It was as good as usual. Not really a surprise when she'd been making this recipe since she had to kneel on a chair pulled up to the kitchen counter to help Mémé. "I'm cooking at least part of most days. If you decide you want something other than chicken."
"One cannot live on chicken alone," Illyana stated soberly, returning her attention to finishing her own plate.
As Illyana saw it, this Emma could be functional, useful to herself and the others at the Inn, so long as she pursued self-improvement in a meaningful way. Utility and development were what mattered, not the exact specialization, and self-doubt was a waste of time and energy. (Visions wherein you died of malnutrition would do little for your survival if you were unable to change the outcome.)
For any other armchair philosophy that she wished to engage in, that potential realized was valuable. This 'Emma' could be valuable, as she most likely had been judged as such by Dani Moonstar. But only if she willfully chose that path for herself.