Yvette, Logan - Saturday afternoon

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Yvette comes across Logan taking some time out. They talk about a number of things, bravery being uppermost.



Logan had his feet kicked up and a block of wood in his hand again. After all the drama that he'd missed in the Mansion - and all of the soul-searching he'd done back at Alkali - he was greatly desiring some quiet time. He made a couple more cuts in the wood then paused to look at his creation. The woman he was carving into the block of Canadian wood had come the closest of anyone he could remember to actually killing him but he felt an odd sense of kinship to her. She'd been through what he'd been through and that made them siblings of a sort.

The tang of cigar smoke caught her nose as she left the treeline, and she looked around until she tracked the source to the man sitting comfortably in the gazebo, whittling knife in hand. Yvette smiled, and veered in that direction - she'd been roaming the woods again, trying to find some of the peace she'd had before half her suite went into a coma, but it had been elusive, as the spikiness of her hair could attest. Maybe talking - or carving - with Mr. Logan would help. She still wasn't very good, but the dog she'd carved for Angelo had at least been recognisable as such. Her bare feet leaving claw-prints in the softening snow, she approached the gazebo, pausing at the steps politely. "Good afternoon, Mr. Logan," she said softly, not wanting to disturb him overmuch if he was in a solitary mood.

Logan heard and smelled her coming, but the kid was pleasant company. Quiet, unobtrusive, and she'd talk if you treated her right. "Howdy, kid." he said. "Pretty rough couple of days, eh?" he said, noting her more-than-usual spikiness. "What's on your mind?"

"Many things," she told him solemnly. "And I am being tired of the thinking about them. May I be joining you? For the carving?" She looked up at him with big glowing eyes. "If I am not being disturbing to you?"

"Grab some bench, kid. Wood's in the duffel." he said, nudging said duffel with a foot taken down from the railing for that express purpose. Putting his feet back up, he looked at the carving in his hands. Logan exhaled deeply and then made another few cuts. "You're not the only one who's tired of thinking too much."

Pausing to sit on the bottom step and pull the socks Clarice had made for her back on, Yvette crept forward in that almost-animal like way of hers and pulled a piece of wood from the bag before choosing a place to sit not too far from Logan, so she could see what he was doing. "Mr. Logan is being away, yes?" she asked in response to his words. "Miss Marie is saying you are being, how you say? Taking some time to be out?"

"Something like that." he said with a smile. "Went back up north to Alkali Lake." he said. "Felt I wanted to see where it all happened again." he added, then made another couple of cuts into the wood. "Someone like me died there." he said. "Created by the same man who made me what I am."

"Like the claws, yes?" Yvette asked, remembering what he had said the last time they'd talked, about being made what he was. "I am being sorry she is dying. Are you being making the carving of her?" She nodded at the block of wood in his hands.

"That's right. This is Yuriko." he said, showing off the half-done carving to Yvette. "She had the same bones I do, but her claws came out of her fingers. Like your talons, but retractable." he pointed out. "Stryker - the man who did this to us - had her under mind control. I like to think that given the choice she wouldn't have worked with him." he said softly. "I would have liked to get to know her."

The carving was simple, but conveyed a certain... nobility to the woman's features. "She is being like you," she observed, not sure of how to express herself in English more fluently than that. "It is seeming there are the many people out there who are making people to do things they are not wanting to," she said, her tone matching his. "Like the making my friends be asleep for so long."

"World's full of sick people, kid. Sick in spirit, sick in body, sick in mind." he said. "That's why people like me and Miss Marie and Mr Summers and Miss Ororo and the rest are here. We're the Thin Black Line that tries real hard to keep the sick people out there so that little girls like you can grow up tall and proud." he said. "Don't always succeed. But we try real hard, kid."

"And sometimes you are being succeeding. Like with the catching of the bad man who is hurting Kyle, yes?" Yvette looked down at the wood in her hands, turning it over, trying to see the shape inside like Logan had told her to do. Her hardened skin left small nicks in the wood despite her care. "Sometimes I am thinking I am not wanting to leave the school, to be going outside. It is being safe here. Outside, it is not so much."

"You're young yet." he said. "And yeah, sometimes we get it right." He wasn't there for when the X-Men took Creed down, but he glanced at the post-op. "And you'll have to, kid. Everyone has to face the real world sooner or later. Warts and all. Our job is to let you grow up right and to give you the tools so that you can go out there in the normal world and lead whatever kind of a life you can lead." He made a few more cuts into the wood, looking it over critically.

Yvette sighed a little, and used one claw-tip to shave away a fragment of wood. There, now she could see it - a rabbit, sitting up, as if looking for predators. "I know," she said at last. "And I am trying to be brave. But sometimes, it is all being very scary."

"Can be." he agreed. "Nothing wrong with being afraid." he told her firmly around cuts of wood. "Everyone gets afraid, kid. Letting it stop you? That's the bad part."

She thought about this for a moment. "Are you ever being afraid, Mr. Logan?" she asked, sure of the answer. Mr. Logan was so fierce and strong, of course he was never afraid.

"Promise not to tell anyone?" he said with a grin, leaning in a little closer to Yvette.

She nodded, seriously. "I promise, Mr. Logan."

"Maybe just a little." he said in a conspiratorial whisper and a wink. "But you know the funny thing about bravery? Success feeds on success." he told her in a more normal tone of voice. "Say you come across something scary - like, say, Miss Jennie going off about something goofy. And she _won't stop_. So you ask her to. Politely, nicely, because you're a good girl, right?" he said with another wink. "And because she's oblivious she doesn't listen. Do you let that stop you? Do you think "Oh no, she won't listen to me, I'm a horrible person!"?"

Yvette shook her head, remembering Marius in the kitchen, when he'd been behaving strangely. "I would be trying again," she said. "And if that is not being working, I am getting a teacher to be helping. Because Jennie is being needing the help, and I am to be helping my friends."

"Well, your heart's in the right place." he said, mollified. "Nothing to it." he said, satisfied. The figure in his woodblock was starting to take more definite, detailed shape now - Asian, focused, almost serene. "Point is, maybe you felt scared, right? But you didn't let it stop you because it needed doing."

Yvette made a slightly doubtful noise, focussing on her own piece of wood, which she was shaving tiny pieces off, one at a time. She'd learned it didn't do to go too quickly, otherwise she took too much off and ended up with a funny looking chunk of wood instead of a carving. "So being brave, it is not being not scared, but doing the thing even if you are being scared?" she asked.

"That's exactly it, kid. Sounds simple, but isn't. Sort of Zen that way." he laughed, then made some more cuts. "Whatcha got goin' on there? Rabbit?" he asked, looking over to her block of wood.

She nodded, pleased he'd recognised it from her clumsy cuts. She held it up for him to see better. "Yes! It is being the rabbit, like I am seeing in the woods, when I am being quiet and hiding so I can be seeing the animals."

Logan grinned. "Ever get close enough to touch a deer?" he asked curiously. "Best thing in the world. You gotta be real quiet and real still to get up close enough to touch 'em before they spook."

"No. I had not thought to be trying..." The idea fascinated her, though, and she turning those glowing blue eyes on him again. "Will Mr. Logan be showing me how the sometime?"

"Sure thing, kid." he said with an easy smile. "But I gotta warn you we go to touch only. Not to hunt. So you'll have to be sure you can loosen up enough not to hurt the deer." he warned. Hunting was just fine by him but he had a sneaky suspicion that the little girl keeping him company wouldn't take to it well.

She held up one foot, wriggling her toe-claws in the self-repairing sock. "I will be wearing the gloves, yes? So I am not being hurting the deer?" Her tone turned a little apologetic. "Because I am not being so good with the control at a moment."

"Maybe. Be better if you were the one in control, not some sock." he pointed out. "You make your skin soft enough to touch people without cuttin' em up and I'll take you out to go meet a deer up close and personal-like. Fair?" he asked with an easy smile.

There was just the slightest hint of a pout on her face, but Yvette sighed and nodded. She was here to learn, after all. "Yes, this is being fair." Then she smiled shyly at him. "I will be trying very hard to be learning."

Logan noted the pout but figured that the incentive for her to get her shit together was more important than temporary happiness. "I'm sure you'll work real hard at it." he said encouragingly. "I got faith in you, kid." he added.

Her only answer was a broad smile and a brilliant glow of her eyes, before she turned back to her carving.