xp_logs | Nathan and Medusa, Saturday afternoon

Somewhat disturbed by the consequences of her evening out, Medusa is sitting down by the lake when Rachel floats by. By herself. Nathan isn't far behind her, of course.

Medusa was sitting on a bench by the lake, her face tranquil despite her inner turmoil. How had she not noticed that someone was taking pictures at the club? And now her face was splashed across a tabloid – true it was probably already old news in the gossip world, but it had been rather embarrassing. She could only hope the American rag didn’t make it’s way to Attilan, but she knew that was expecting too much. Sitting outside had always been calming to her and so she had found herself wandering the gardens until choosing a spot that reminded her of home.

It was a lovely afternoon. A quiet afternoon. And the soft giggling coming from the stand of trees not far from Medusa was sitting was barely audible, as if the one giggling was trying to be very, very quiet but simply couldn't restrain her exuberance.

Medusa looked up as the noise startled her out of her thoughts. What she saw was unusual enough to surprise even her as a red haired baby floated into her visual field. That cannot be good. Automatically, a tendril of hair extended itself to wrap around the baby’s waist, pulling Rachel down to eye level, but keeping her at a distance. A gleeful gurgle from the baby earned an uneasy look from Medusa. She preferred children at a distance or not at all and now that she had roped the baby, she wasn’t sure what to do with her.

Rachel giggled again, patting the strand of hair with keen interest, her raw and untrained perceptions clearly picking up that something was odd about the makeshift tether. "Ooo!" she proclaimed - and gave a yank with all the telekinesis she had.

That earned a glare from Medusa as her hair reflexively swung outwards in response to the force exerted on it, the tiny redhead wrapped in the strands going along for the ride. She did, however, resist the urge to fling the child out across the lake. "Batente! Bad baby!” she blurted out. "It is not nice to pull people’s hair," she said, her voice serious.

There was a sudden rapid, almost violent stirring of leaves in the woods, and Nathan's firebird shot through the canopy, coming around in a surprisingly tight loop - even Haroun would have had to admit that his flying was getting better - to float in front of the two redheads, just off the shore.

"Rachel Kinross," her father said sternly. Rachel immediately went very wide-eyed and stopped trying to pull away from Medusa.

Medusa couldn’t contain the relief she felt at spotting the gray haired man. It probably said something about her that the sight of the firebird rattled her less than the baby at the end of one of her tresses. "Greetings Nathan. I take it this, " she said, sending a slight tremor though the lock of hair holding Rachel, "belongs to you?" She continued eyeing the baby warily, holding her at a distance.

Nathan floated a little closer to the baby. "You can let go of her, Medusa," he said, giving the older redhead a kind smile. "Thanks for catching her. And you - you little demon. Who taught you to open doors?"

"Heeheehee...?"

Little demon was right. Medusa released Rachel, pulling her hair back quickly before the baby’s outstretched fist could grasp on to it. "You are welcome.” She smiled tentatively back at Nathan before returning her gaze to the floating baby. "Does she often…go out on her own?" she asked, sitting back down on the bench. Her eyes stayed locked on Rachel, almost as if she expected the baby to grow a second head.

The wings of the firebird folded, the exoskeleton collapsing in on itself, and Nathan floated gently towards Rachel, who stayed quite cheerfully where she was and then snuggled into his arms as soon as he reached out to her. Nathan shook his head and drifted down to the ground. "New trick," he said. "I was upstairs, and she managed to open the locked door and get outside. I was trying to follow her quietly - I didn't want her to take it into her head to start moving any faster than she was." He smiled at Medusa. "Thanks for the save. The hair does come in handy, doesn't it?"

"Indeed, though I have never used it quite that way before. I have caught errant hats and scarves in the past, but never a wayward child." She hesitated, then patted the bench next to her. She was not going to let a one year old stop her from talking to one of the few people in the mansion who did not judge her. "Would you care to join me?

"Absolutely," Nathan said, sinking down onto the bench beside her and settling Rachel on his lap. Rachel seemed perfectly content to sit there and stare up at the clouds moving swiftly across the blue sky, her wide gray eyes tracking them almost speculatively. "Did you and Crystal enjoy your trip home?"

A genuine smile spread across Medusa’s face. "Yes. It is always good to go home." Her voice grew quiet and reflective. "Things make sense there, but I am beginning to understand why my parents feel it is best for me to experience life outside of Attilan."

"We need to stretch ourselves," Nathan said, glancing up at the clouds for a moment himself. "It's good for us," he said easily. "Sometimes very good. When I was about your age I spent a year living with a group of nomads in Kazakhstan. I still look back on it as a time that changed my life."

"Perhaps that is what this will be for me, though to be honest I was quite content with the path my life was already taking." A slight frown crossed her face. "Especially since I still feel I am more needed there than here.” When she’d passed on the name of the Hungarian minister, her parents had exchanged the glance she knew meant something bigger was going on. And while it was unladylike to eavesdrop, if she happened to be passing by the room they were later talking in, that was just coincidence, right?

"Maybe that's one of the reaons they wanted you here," Nathan suggested lightly, taking Rachel's tiny hands in his as she leaned back against him, still staring up at the clouds. "To give you a chance to... explore a little, without needing to worry about what you need to do. I get the sense that you grew up with a very strong commitment to duty. That's an admirable quality, as far as I'm concerned. But it's also a good idea to make sure you have some... perspective on that duty."

"Perspective? What perspective do I need? I need to serve my country. Living for a year in America will not change that drive." Her eyes hardened as she spoke, but resumed their normal state when she shook her head. "But I am trying to keep an open mind."

Nathan gave her a patient look, but didn't press. He suspected she was in the process of acquiring that perspective, whether she realized it or not. "That's what's important," he said with a crooked smile. "Not to close yourself off. If... when you follow the path you're intending to follow, it'll be helpful to have a year's insider experience on how truly strange and bizarre the world outside Attilan can be."

She nodded, agreeing with the last of his statement most of all. “I cannot argue with that. I also have to admit I am finding the coursework at Columbia more beneficial than I have imagined, though not as much for the material as for the connections I am forging.”

"College as a social experience," Nathan said with a suspicious twinkle in his eye. "Who'd have thought it..."

Medusa pursed her lips. "Perhaps you can answer a question for me. There is this stone memorial I passed on campus…it looked like people had left flowers, cards and balloons around it, but I have not been able to have long enough to stop and see what it is for exactly."

Nathan's expression changed. Not dramatically - it was more like a cloud had passed in front of the sun than anything else. Rachel, however, craned her neck around to look up at her father and cooed uncertainly. Nathan kissed her on the top of the head. "That would be the memorial from the massacre back in July of 2004," he said, his voice only slightly gruff.

A shudder ran through Medusa, from the top of her head to the ends of her hair. Of course. Nathan’s words brought to mind memories of news reports that she’d seen over two years before. "I do not know why I did not draw the connection myself," she said.

"I'm not surprised there were flowers and the like there. It's very much a part of their collective past, still." It was amazingly how dispassionate he could sound, talking about it.

Medusa nodded, her face impassive despite the anger she felt rising within her chest. "Two years is not that much time, to heal from something of that magnitude. I cannot imagine what it must be like for students who were attending at that time, especially those that witnessed it firsthand."

He could feel the tension in his shoulders shift upwards a few notches. "Yes," he said, his voice a great deal softer than it had been. Rachel wriggled furiously on his lap, squirming around until he relented and set her down on the grass. "Don't worry, I can reel her back in if she takes off again," he said, and his jaw tightened slightly at the brief wobble in his voice.

Medusa began drawing connections – Nathan’s reaction to speaking about the massacre along with the faint memory of a mutant with an exoskeleton on the news. She looked over at him, wondering how she had managed to ask her questions of one of the people in the mansion who probably did not want to dredge up memories of the event. "I am sorry," she said, her voice tinged with compassion.

Oh, she was quick. Then again, he'd known that already. Nathan took a deep breath that was just a little shaky and let it out again before he answered. "It's not a secret around here," he said quietly, "that I was there. I wasn't the only one, either. And there are quite a number of people who know why it happened, too. It wasn't a random thing." Would she ask someone? "But it's not public knowledge, either, and there's a reason for that."

"I see," she said, careful to keep her voice neutral. There was obviously something deeper going on here, but it was not her place to push Nathan for details on something that was obviously so troubling to him. She could explore it more privately on her own and see what she came across. Clasping her hands in her lap, her gaze drifted out over the lake. She would never understand mutants who used their power for carnage and destruction.

"I haven't been to Columbia since. I don't think I could, even now..." Nathan shook his head, as if he could shake off the dark mood. "I've been through a lot of hard things in my life," he said, much more quietly, "but that had to have been one of the very worst. No matter how often something of that nature happens, it's very hard to be in the middle of it and know that for all your power, you can't stop it."

Medusa was quiet at first and it almost seemed as though she wasn’t going to reply. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet and contemplative. "Yet that is as important a realization as any. We do the best we can, but we all have limits. When one has powers, that is often difficult to remember."

"I spent so much of my life being helpless," Nathan said, more to himself than to her. "You'd think I'd be used to it." Rachel looked up at him, displaying a handful of grass, and he smiled a bit faintly. "Stop tearing up Cain's lawn, munchkin."

"I do not think being helpless is ever easy," she said, once again finding herself wondering about Nathan’s past. She looked down at the redheaded child merrily ignoring her father and continuing to pull up clumps of grass. "Unless perhaps you are young," she amended.