Yvette, Logan - Monday morning

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Tying up loose ends... Yvette makes the apology she planned to before her return home, and Logan is distinctly not-scary.



The thing about not having classes with everyone else was that things tended to be quiet during the day. And whilst Yvette liked quiet, sometimes there could be too much of a good thing. So she was drifting outside, thinking maybe of reading in the treehouse again, when she caught the distinctive smell of a cigar, and the sight of Mr. Logan on the bench near the back porch steps. It occurred to her that she'd never gotten around to apologising for hurting him in the woods. Well, time to fix that. With a firmness unusual in the shy girl, she stepped outside, clearing her throat a little.

"Please to be excusing me, Mr. Logan," she began, her voice soft. "Can I be speaking with you a moment?"

Logan blinked, shifting his perceptions to the outside world instead of beating his metaphorical fists against the walls of his mind. "Sure, kid." he said, shifting to make a little room for her to pass if she wanted. "What's on your mind?" He even had the presence of mind to extinguish his cigar by grinding it against his palm.

She came forward, choosing to perch on the step above him, sitting on her haunches and her long taloned toes - safely covered by Forge's socks - curling over the edge of the wood. "I am being wanting to apologise, for when we are in the woods. I am being hurting you, even if your power is being saving you. It was not right, for me to be doing that, even if I am being made fright to." Her English was getting garbled, even for her, so she added, in hesitant Serbian. "~Please accept my apologies for attempting to injure you.~"

Logan waved that one off. "No problem, kid. Frightened people fight to protect themselves." he said calmly. "You fitting in OK?" he asked, looking at her glowing eyes and her crouched posture.

She nodded, and switched back to English. "I am being trying," she replied. "There are many people being helping me, and I am making friends. Sometimes things can be confusing..." She thought of Crystal, and Kyle, and her eyes flared brighter. "But I am being learning, very hard."

Logan nodded. "You're a survivor. You'll do fine." he predicted. "I don't have much to offer you, but if you want anything, feel free to ask." he offered. "Kamere, siddown." he said, patting the bench. "I'd offer you a beer, but you're a little young for that." he said with a kindly smile. Instead, he picked up his half-done woodcarving and got his knife out, testing its edge against his thumb. When the blade cut into his flesh easily, he nodded and put blade to wood.

Moving from her perch on the step, she joined him on the bench, a small noise escaping her as she watched the cut on his thumb heal itself. "That is being your power?" she asked, nodding at his hands. "The being fixing yourself?"

"I heal." he said with a nod. Then, in a fit of honesty, he popped his claws from the hand that held his woodcarving knife. "Man named Bill Stryker gave me these. My bones don't break, either." he said. He retracted his claws and waited for her reaction - wondering if she'd rabbit or spook.

She flinched a little as the claws appeared, reminded of that day in the woods, but she held her ground. Logan wasn't the only dangerous mutant, and more than a month of conscious living in a body that could cut steel if she wanted to had made her sensitive to such things. So she simply nodded, eyes on the cuts in his knuckles as they healed. "I am being glad you were not fighting me back," she observed, a hint of humour in her voice, the only indication of her emotions given the impassiveness of her face. "Is it being hurting, when you are doing that?"

"Every time." he said, remembering back to when the last time a little girl had asked him that. Same serious mien, same shitty circumstance. Hopefully this one would turn out as well as Marie did. "And you're welcome. I don't normally make a habit of carving up people who are only trying to defend themselves."

"I am sorry, that it is being hurting. Even being with your power." She watched him handling the knife easily, chips of wood flying this way and that. "What are you being making, Mr. Logan?"

"Gift for one of the pups." he said easily. "Something I discovered I know how to do a while back. I find it relaxing." he said. The one he was working on was a harp design - probably intended for Terry. "You ever carve wood?" he asked easily.

She shook her head no. "Before I am changing, I am not being the art student. But I am being helping Mr. Marko, when he is cutting wood." Her eyes brightened at the memory. "He is making Cain sized pieces and I am making me-sized pieces. For the kindling."

Logan reached down and pulled out another chunk of wood from the bag at his feet. The same bag that clinked of glass-on-glass when he rooted through it. "Here, kid." he said, handing her a chunk of wood. "You got something you'd like to try?" he asked.

She took the wood from him, turning it over in her hands a little uncertainly, but there was certainly a degree of curiosity there. "I am thinking... maybe a dog?" she suggested. "Like Joyita? It is looking a little like a dog sitting already."

"Whatever works for you." he said. "See the dog in the wood. See it from every angle, know every curve. Then carve away the wood until all that's left is the dog." he said. "You want a knife or you just going to use a talon?" he asked. "Got a spare one here if you want to borrow it."

Yvette lay the piece of wood down beside her and tugged off one glove with her teeth. "I am going to being trying with my hand first, Mr. Logan," she said, an odd note of determination in her voice. She might be stuck with this shape, but she could make the most use of it she could. Her eyes flashed briefly. "And I am not being very good with knives."

"Learn." he said curtly. "When your body is a blade, you'd do well to learn it." he said, and then left it at that. He returned his attention to his half-done block of wood, and made a few more cuts along it. But he keep his spare blade in his bag.

"Yes, Mr. Logan," came the obedient reply and, shooting glances at the way he was handling the blade and the wood, Yvette began her own carving.