Marius, Amanda - Tuesday morning, dawn
Nov. 29th, 2005 05:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsIt's a strange time to meet new people, but Amanda manages it. Out for some fresh air she bumps into someone who understands the whole draining others concept.
Several days in the suite, and before that several weeks in Selene's house - Amanda wasn't one for snow and cold weather, but she had to get outside before she went crazy. Or crazier than people already thought she was. Dawn would be relatively safe enough, she decided. Manuel was gone and anyone who would be out and about would generally be X-Men types, training. None of them would give her much in the way of grief.
Carefully she eased the suite door closed behind her, having left a brief note for Jubilee and Marie-Ange, and padded softly downstairs. She didn't have much in the way of clothes after her purging, so she grabbed the coat Pete had slung over her shoulders at the HFC. White for the White King, of course, she thought with a soft snort. All this was still so hard to understand.
Snow crunched under her Docs as she headed down the steps and her breath steamed. Fuck, it was cold. Maybe this had been a trifle overambitious of her.
"Up early or still awake?"
A boy Amanda had never met before stood a few yards away. The cuffs of his sweatpants were cracking with snow, the tracks behind him winding away from one of the several trails the school's fitness enthusiasts made use of. His hair had the lank, curling look of drying (or, in this case, freezing) sweat.
She jumped, squeaking a little. She hadn't really expected anyone to be about, or to approach her if they were. "A bit of both," she said, hunching into the over-large coat a bit more, trying to place the face. Someone she hadn't met yet. There'd been some stuff on the journals about a new student around the time she'd been locked in her room, hadn't there? "Um, I'm sorry, I don't know who..." she trailled off lamely, not sure how to introduce herself.
"Marius." The boy glanced down to stamp some of the snow from a sneakered foot, then met her gaze again with a slight smile. "Attacked Mr. Dayspring my first day. You'd be Amanda, I'm thinking."
"Um, yeah. That'd be me." Attacked Nate? It obviously hadn't been anything serious, or she doubted he'd be roaming the grounds unsupervised. "Aussie, are you?" She knew the accent from Brighton's backpacker contingent.
Marius nodded. "From Brisbane. Brit, right? At last, another person with proper spelling."
Amanda smiled faintly. Marius was certainly a typical Aussie, judging from the friendliness. "Would've thought it'd be a bit too cold for a tropical boy like yourself out here," she said, wishing she had a cigarette. She'd run out and hadn't exactly been able to ask for any, especially with Pete leaving like he had. And Remy had been holed up since he got back - she knew the news of Pete's true mission was hitting him hard. "Fitness nut or just like to freeze your bollocks off?"
"Rehabilitation. Joggin' through snow's a bit like runnin' along the beach -- extra resistence." He shrugged. "As for my bollocks, whatever doesn't kill them can only make them stronger. And after comin' to know Catseye, the idea's got merit." He rubbed his gloved hands together, then stuck them into his pockets. "Well, there's my excuse -- what's yours?"
Amanda snickered a little at the mention of Catseye, although the laughter quickly faded - she remembered a night in the stable with a bottle of booze and Catseye's particular brand of therapy. Gone now, same as so many other friendships. "Needed some air," she said at last. "There's only so long you can stay cooped up, and I figured now would be the best time to avoid running into people."
"Yeah, this's a good time for that. So may runners around pre-mornin' is just about the only time I get a trail to myself." He paused to wipe his nose on his sleeve. "An' regardless of how ridiculous it is for breathin' to hurt, fresh air is vastly underrated. There are worse pretexts for avoidin' people." He sniffed again, then offered her a half-smile. "No worries, I haven't got much an idea of what all went on the past few months. You lot are too complicated to pick up overnight, and so far no one's offered the cliffnotes."
"Yeah, we tend to like our secrets around here." Amanda sighed, her breath coming out in a long plume. "Cliff notes version? I made a deal with one of the bad guys and fucked up my life here because of it. Only I couldn't go through with it so here I am, back again. After killing off the ghosts in Nate's head for good measure. Oh, and don't forget the part where I ripped out the empathic link I had with my boyfriend." She glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. "That enough for you?"
"As summaries go, it's decent. Vergin' on bitter, but decent." Marius knew it was inappropriate, but he couldn't help but smile. "It's weird, though. First student I ever met said pretty much the same thing about ruinin' his life and fallin' in with the bad guys. Excludin' the bits about killin' ghosts and the empathically-linked boyfriend, 'course, but y'know. In general terms. Helps with the shock." And he'd already heard pieces -- mostly from parties more than twice-removed from the situation, true, but pieces nonetheless.
Still, Amanda wasn't quite what he'd expected. She seemed too . . . normal. Tired, yes, stressed, certainly, but normal. Although considering the context, perhaps that wasn't saying much.
Amanda tried to think who that might be, then remembered Forge's post. "Ah, that'd be Forge. One major difference - he got kidnapped. Me, I went of my own accord, 'cause I thought I didn't have any other options. Which was wrong." She shrugged. "And this is turning into a pity party, which isn't what I want at all. Just wanted to be up front with you. So, Marius, what is it you do? The fact you're still walking after attacking Nate makes me think you've got yourself some invulnerability or something. "
Marius noted that "what's your power?" was apparently the genetically gifted's answer to "where are you from?" or "who's your father?". Oh well.
"I need to suck the marrow out of other mutants to survive, which is only saved from unforgivable lameness by the fact it lets me use their powers for a while. And it looks like I can flip a power if someone attacks me. Oh, an' I have to use these to extract the marrow." He peeled up a glove and held up his hand, mouth-out. Marius grinned, raising an eyebrow of his own. "That enough for you?"
Amanda blinked. "Bloody hell. Talk about being behind the door when the sexy mutations were handed out," she said, and then blushed a little. "Sorry, didn't mean how that sounded. So... you need to feed on other mutants to survive?" She couldn't help feeling the irony here. She'd done pretty much the same thing in order to save lives and it had landed her in more trouble than she could every have imagined. Then again, the source hadn't been natural.
"Seems like. And no worries. The buggers nearly killed me before we figured that one out, so I figure trashin' on my powers is the least I'm entitled to. Apparently my genes missed the bit about mutations ideally bein' beneficial." Marius rolled his eyes and replaced the glove. "Got sent here because, well" he smiled, "no other options."
"There's always options," Amanda said, her returning smile a bit sad. "Sometimes it's a matter of working out which is the best one. But yeah, you could do worse. This place is about giving people chances."
"So runs the sales pitch, yeah," Marius grinned. "So on the topic of sexy powers, what's yours then? Somethin' energy related, I'm guessin' . . ."
"You can tell that?" Amanda asked curiously. At Marius' nod, she shrugged again - it was apparently a common gesture for her. "At the moment... it's nothing. Overloaded myself and I can't say I'm sorry for the loss. But usually... I absorb energy and use it for magic, if you want the simplest explanation."
Marius raised an eyebrow. "People keep mentionin' magic, and now I've adjusted to teeth in my hands an' people who read minds an' turn into purple cats I'm confident I'll be able to accept that sort of talk without skepticism . . . one of these days, anyway." He gave her a helpless shrug, smiling. "Burnt out your powers? This really is like that bit with Forge. I could -- well, don't know for sure, but I jumpstarted his powers . . ." He paused to cocked his head at the look on her face, ". . . but I get the sense you're not lookin' for that."
Considering she'd almost physically flinched back at the word 'jumpstart', no, she wans't. "I need time," she said, recalling a conversation with Alison eons ago it seemed, about letting things heal in their own time. "A lot of this mess is 'cause of my powers and the magic and it's better I stay this way for now. Less complicated." Safer.
Marius nodded wryly. "I know the feelin'. So, what's the plan, then? Goin' to stick around for rehabilitation? This lot's pretty forgivin' about the 'no powers and did terrible things' bit."
"I... don't really know. I think I've pushed things a bit much as far as the forgiving goes, at least with some people." She recalled Manuel calling her a thing in his journal with a wince. "And I'm not sure staying here is the best thing. But yeah, there's not a lot of options, least not that I can see yet." The grin she flashed him then was full of ironic humour. "Something'll turn up."
Marius smiled. "Always does, in my experience."
For a moment they stood in silence, face-to-face, his sweat-stained clothing and dark skin a blotch of shadow against the snow, her white coat and blonde hair strangely luminous in the sourceless grey light of pre-dawn. In that moment Marius felt the distance that stretched between them -- the distance that had nothing to do with location, and everything to do with experience. It was the same distance he'd felt with Forge that first night out of isolation, the night that seemed a lifetime ago.
"Way I see it, figure everyone's allowed a few royal cock-ups," Marius said at last. "You make a mistake, only thing to do is suck up an' get on with it. You do what you can, an' the rest can either take it or go hang. When it comes down to it, that's all you can do, really." He rubbed his hands and smiled again. "Anyway, I'd best be off. There's a fine line between toughenin' up and gettin' frostbite, an' at this rate I'll be combin' my hair with a chisel. Good to finally put a face to the name, though. Expect I'll see you around . . . for a bit, at least."
It was nothing Remy hadn't already told her, but the advice was somehow reassuring. She could do no more than her best. "It was nice, meeting you," she said and she meant it wholeheartedly. "Think I'll take that walk and then see about taking breakfast up to the roomies. They've been bloody brilliant this week. See you later, yeah?"
"No doubt." With one last flash of smile, Marius sketched an ironic bow before completing the short jog back to the mansion, and Amanda was once again alone in the cold.
Several days in the suite, and before that several weeks in Selene's house - Amanda wasn't one for snow and cold weather, but she had to get outside before she went crazy. Or crazier than people already thought she was. Dawn would be relatively safe enough, she decided. Manuel was gone and anyone who would be out and about would generally be X-Men types, training. None of them would give her much in the way of grief.
Carefully she eased the suite door closed behind her, having left a brief note for Jubilee and Marie-Ange, and padded softly downstairs. She didn't have much in the way of clothes after her purging, so she grabbed the coat Pete had slung over her shoulders at the HFC. White for the White King, of course, she thought with a soft snort. All this was still so hard to understand.
Snow crunched under her Docs as she headed down the steps and her breath steamed. Fuck, it was cold. Maybe this had been a trifle overambitious of her.
"Up early or still awake?"
A boy Amanda had never met before stood a few yards away. The cuffs of his sweatpants were cracking with snow, the tracks behind him winding away from one of the several trails the school's fitness enthusiasts made use of. His hair had the lank, curling look of drying (or, in this case, freezing) sweat.
She jumped, squeaking a little. She hadn't really expected anyone to be about, or to approach her if they were. "A bit of both," she said, hunching into the over-large coat a bit more, trying to place the face. Someone she hadn't met yet. There'd been some stuff on the journals about a new student around the time she'd been locked in her room, hadn't there? "Um, I'm sorry, I don't know who..." she trailled off lamely, not sure how to introduce herself.
"Marius." The boy glanced down to stamp some of the snow from a sneakered foot, then met her gaze again with a slight smile. "Attacked Mr. Dayspring my first day. You'd be Amanda, I'm thinking."
"Um, yeah. That'd be me." Attacked Nate? It obviously hadn't been anything serious, or she doubted he'd be roaming the grounds unsupervised. "Aussie, are you?" She knew the accent from Brighton's backpacker contingent.
Marius nodded. "From Brisbane. Brit, right? At last, another person with proper spelling."
Amanda smiled faintly. Marius was certainly a typical Aussie, judging from the friendliness. "Would've thought it'd be a bit too cold for a tropical boy like yourself out here," she said, wishing she had a cigarette. She'd run out and hadn't exactly been able to ask for any, especially with Pete leaving like he had. And Remy had been holed up since he got back - she knew the news of Pete's true mission was hitting him hard. "Fitness nut or just like to freeze your bollocks off?"
"Rehabilitation. Joggin' through snow's a bit like runnin' along the beach -- extra resistence." He shrugged. "As for my bollocks, whatever doesn't kill them can only make them stronger. And after comin' to know Catseye, the idea's got merit." He rubbed his gloved hands together, then stuck them into his pockets. "Well, there's my excuse -- what's yours?"
Amanda snickered a little at the mention of Catseye, although the laughter quickly faded - she remembered a night in the stable with a bottle of booze and Catseye's particular brand of therapy. Gone now, same as so many other friendships. "Needed some air," she said at last. "There's only so long you can stay cooped up, and I figured now would be the best time to avoid running into people."
"Yeah, this's a good time for that. So may runners around pre-mornin' is just about the only time I get a trail to myself." He paused to wipe his nose on his sleeve. "An' regardless of how ridiculous it is for breathin' to hurt, fresh air is vastly underrated. There are worse pretexts for avoidin' people." He sniffed again, then offered her a half-smile. "No worries, I haven't got much an idea of what all went on the past few months. You lot are too complicated to pick up overnight, and so far no one's offered the cliffnotes."
"Yeah, we tend to like our secrets around here." Amanda sighed, her breath coming out in a long plume. "Cliff notes version? I made a deal with one of the bad guys and fucked up my life here because of it. Only I couldn't go through with it so here I am, back again. After killing off the ghosts in Nate's head for good measure. Oh, and don't forget the part where I ripped out the empathic link I had with my boyfriend." She glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. "That enough for you?"
"As summaries go, it's decent. Vergin' on bitter, but decent." Marius knew it was inappropriate, but he couldn't help but smile. "It's weird, though. First student I ever met said pretty much the same thing about ruinin' his life and fallin' in with the bad guys. Excludin' the bits about killin' ghosts and the empathically-linked boyfriend, 'course, but y'know. In general terms. Helps with the shock." And he'd already heard pieces -- mostly from parties more than twice-removed from the situation, true, but pieces nonetheless.
Still, Amanda wasn't quite what he'd expected. She seemed too . . . normal. Tired, yes, stressed, certainly, but normal. Although considering the context, perhaps that wasn't saying much.
Amanda tried to think who that might be, then remembered Forge's post. "Ah, that'd be Forge. One major difference - he got kidnapped. Me, I went of my own accord, 'cause I thought I didn't have any other options. Which was wrong." She shrugged. "And this is turning into a pity party, which isn't what I want at all. Just wanted to be up front with you. So, Marius, what is it you do? The fact you're still walking after attacking Nate makes me think you've got yourself some invulnerability or something. "
Marius noted that "what's your power?" was apparently the genetically gifted's answer to "where are you from?" or "who's your father?". Oh well.
"I need to suck the marrow out of other mutants to survive, which is only saved from unforgivable lameness by the fact it lets me use their powers for a while. And it looks like I can flip a power if someone attacks me. Oh, an' I have to use these to extract the marrow." He peeled up a glove and held up his hand, mouth-out. Marius grinned, raising an eyebrow of his own. "That enough for you?"
Amanda blinked. "Bloody hell. Talk about being behind the door when the sexy mutations were handed out," she said, and then blushed a little. "Sorry, didn't mean how that sounded. So... you need to feed on other mutants to survive?" She couldn't help feeling the irony here. She'd done pretty much the same thing in order to save lives and it had landed her in more trouble than she could every have imagined. Then again, the source hadn't been natural.
"Seems like. And no worries. The buggers nearly killed me before we figured that one out, so I figure trashin' on my powers is the least I'm entitled to. Apparently my genes missed the bit about mutations ideally bein' beneficial." Marius rolled his eyes and replaced the glove. "Got sent here because, well" he smiled, "no other options."
"There's always options," Amanda said, her returning smile a bit sad. "Sometimes it's a matter of working out which is the best one. But yeah, you could do worse. This place is about giving people chances."
"So runs the sales pitch, yeah," Marius grinned. "So on the topic of sexy powers, what's yours then? Somethin' energy related, I'm guessin' . . ."
"You can tell that?" Amanda asked curiously. At Marius' nod, she shrugged again - it was apparently a common gesture for her. "At the moment... it's nothing. Overloaded myself and I can't say I'm sorry for the loss. But usually... I absorb energy and use it for magic, if you want the simplest explanation."
Marius raised an eyebrow. "People keep mentionin' magic, and now I've adjusted to teeth in my hands an' people who read minds an' turn into purple cats I'm confident I'll be able to accept that sort of talk without skepticism . . . one of these days, anyway." He gave her a helpless shrug, smiling. "Burnt out your powers? This really is like that bit with Forge. I could -- well, don't know for sure, but I jumpstarted his powers . . ." He paused to cocked his head at the look on her face, ". . . but I get the sense you're not lookin' for that."
Considering she'd almost physically flinched back at the word 'jumpstart', no, she wans't. "I need time," she said, recalling a conversation with Alison eons ago it seemed, about letting things heal in their own time. "A lot of this mess is 'cause of my powers and the magic and it's better I stay this way for now. Less complicated." Safer.
Marius nodded wryly. "I know the feelin'. So, what's the plan, then? Goin' to stick around for rehabilitation? This lot's pretty forgivin' about the 'no powers and did terrible things' bit."
"I... don't really know. I think I've pushed things a bit much as far as the forgiving goes, at least with some people." She recalled Manuel calling her a thing in his journal with a wince. "And I'm not sure staying here is the best thing. But yeah, there's not a lot of options, least not that I can see yet." The grin she flashed him then was full of ironic humour. "Something'll turn up."
Marius smiled. "Always does, in my experience."
For a moment they stood in silence, face-to-face, his sweat-stained clothing and dark skin a blotch of shadow against the snow, her white coat and blonde hair strangely luminous in the sourceless grey light of pre-dawn. In that moment Marius felt the distance that stretched between them -- the distance that had nothing to do with location, and everything to do with experience. It was the same distance he'd felt with Forge that first night out of isolation, the night that seemed a lifetime ago.
"Way I see it, figure everyone's allowed a few royal cock-ups," Marius said at last. "You make a mistake, only thing to do is suck up an' get on with it. You do what you can, an' the rest can either take it or go hang. When it comes down to it, that's all you can do, really." He rubbed his hands and smiled again. "Anyway, I'd best be off. There's a fine line between toughenin' up and gettin' frostbite, an' at this rate I'll be combin' my hair with a chisel. Good to finally put a face to the name, though. Expect I'll see you around . . . for a bit, at least."
It was nothing Remy hadn't already told her, but the advice was somehow reassuring. She could do no more than her best. "It was nice, meeting you," she said and she meant it wholeheartedly. "Think I'll take that walk and then see about taking breakfast up to the roomies. They've been bloody brilliant this week. See you later, yeah?"
"No doubt." With one last flash of smile, Marius sketched an ironic bow before completing the short jog back to the mansion, and Amanda was once again alone in the cold.
