Monet and Illyana, Wednesday, April 4

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Illyana and Monet have a chance encounter in the library. Monet is grappling with econometrics; Illyana has switched to a different research strategy. (Reposted because LJ and I were having Issues tonight. Those being that I cannot use a drop-down menu.)


February, 2007

Weren’t loyalists supposed to be loyal? Illyana was pretty sure she’d got that memo somewhere along the way. She watched the scene before her play out with a particular kind of rage, one that was possessive and tired of playing these games. They were leaving her side. A lot of them.

She’d managed to catch one on the end of her sword, though. “Feel like explaining yourself?” She prodded the demon with her shoe, then regretted it. Hiding demon slime from your roommates was - problematic. Especially when you were already getting in trouble for missing class.

She had things to attend to. The biggest kind of things.

The demon cowering beneath her growled gutterally, like a dog.

“He is coming. And he will let us rule over what is ours.”

“This isn’t his, or yours,” Illyana said patiently. “It’s mine. I won it in battle. You remember that, right? It wasn’t that long ago.”

“Longer than you think,” it hissed. “But he does not mean this in-between place.”

“Oh, and what else would you rule over?”

“He will open the way to your pitiful human dimension - “

The books were not helping very much.

Illyana had given up on the physics of dimensional transportation a week ago. It was complicated, and, quite frankly, required a degree of knowledge that Kitty would probably have had, but for which she would have at least have to had taken physics to attain. She'd turned to the history books. History, at least, she could understand without a couple of degrees.

Only, historians writing about visions of hell in Medieval Europe were either pretentious, missing the point, or both. It would have been a lot easier if they'd figured out that demons actually existed, and weren't just extensions of the religious discourse of the time, or constructions of language made to perpetuate power structures, or whatever nonsense people made up to hide from the cold hard truth of life.

She sighed, flipping a page, but looked up when she heard a noise from one of the aisles.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk-snap. Monet stared at her textbook. Apparently, you could actually break hard cover books if you had super strength and a pressing desire to learn the content in chapter five of Basic Econometrics by osmosis. She gave up, looking around for a distraction. Oooh! Illyana. Monet got up and ambled over, slinging herself into a chair opposite her. "So. Whatcha doing?"

A little surprised at the interruption, but not entirely ungrateful for it, Illyana half-smiled. "Research for this history essay," she said, gesturing at her notebook (if she wasn't going to use it in actual history class, she might as well get some use out of it). "Well. I'm trying to, anyway, but it's not getting more interesting." She paused. "What did your textbook do to you?"

"History. Ouch. I'm sorry." Monet grinned. "My textbook tried to make me learn something called two variable analysis with the doovhewacky and the thing. It's all horribly boring." Monet picked up one of the books and squinted at it. "...and invocating upon Satan, two spirits did appear unto her in the likeness of two black frogs..." She down the page a little way. "Whereupon she did promise them her soul. What on earth are you reading? And why does she think these frogs are demons?"

"It's conceptions of hell in the 14th century," Illyana explained. "I'm aiming for pity grades. Sad past, and all. All considered, I think I'd rather be doing that analysis thing." She appreciated Monet, who was honest, although overly concerned about her fingernails. "I'm not sure why frogs were supposed to be demons. Or vice versa. I think it had to do with a lack of hygiene or literacy or something."

"Uh huh. So it wasn't all mass hallucinations caused by eating moldy bread? I saw something about that on the history channel once. So, were these real demons or just crazy old ladies who thought there were demons in the fridge?" Monet flicked through another of the books, staring at the reproductions of wood engravings. "Or was it just that they're a bunch of sad old blokes who needed to get out more. Because boobs just don't look like that. They're not that pointy, for one."

"They were mostly lonely and single, whatever they were," Illyana said thoughtfully. "Though the engravings tend to be very, er, imaginative. Those aren't even the good ones." She pushed another book across to Monet. "I'm pretty sure that's not even possible without a very specific mutation. I think this is what people did before television."

"I'm sorry, but OW!" Monet twitched slightly. "That can't be hygenic. You sure do research the nicest stuff, hon. Why, exactly, are you going for this for your pity grades? Couldn't you do 'Illyana's Childhood In Hell: A tragic play in six parts' or something? I'm sure they'd pass you with that. You'd be all" she waved her hands "addressing your Issues and shit."

"They get all suspicious when you do stuff like that. Like, Oh, Illyana, if you really want to talk about your issues, why don't you make an appointment and we can discuss your trauma whenever you're ready. They're very talkative, which I discourage." In actual fact, she was supposed to be writing about something to do with America and the Revolution and five-score-something-something for this class, but luckily Monet didn't have to know that. "Besides, I'm not too keen to write a play about myself, when it comes to that."

"But it could be all pretentious and," Monet leaned back, hand over her heart, in an 'I'm an actor pose', "woe, woe is upon ye all in the form of walking demonic celery and mimed impersonations of the Id suffering mightily and you could go all post structuralist and do the entire thing behind red celophane, to demonstrate the thing. With the thing." She paused. "Um. Or perhaps not?" It was dawning on Monet that she had possibly done Too Much Studying For Commerce recently.

Illyana snorted, amused. "And then we could all sit around interpreting it for hidden meanings from the depths of my psyche. I don't know, sounds a bit worse than hell, if you ask me. Especially if the post structuralists are anything like these postmodernists with their discourses and texts and symbolic metaphor nonsense."

"They're about as bad, yeah. Different jargon but it all boils down to them not having gone outside in a while."

"People really need to go outside more," Illyana said thoughtfully. "As a rule. Particularly if they are making up theories or using artistic talent to traumatize future generations."

Monet pouted. "But how will they learn if we don't traumatise them?"

"Notice where you are." Illyana grinned and gestured at the school at large. "Since when does trauma mean learning? Usually it means whining. And repetition. Though if we could target the trauma, that might be useful. Difficult, though."

"We could just settle for beating particularly irritating people around the head. That's almost directed trauma. Or just settle for taking their coffee away if they get emo."

"That might work." Illyana glanced reluctantly down at her very real research, and, making excuses for her very fake paper topic, added: "I'd better get back to work. And you should go learn that thing with variables." God, she'd forgotten how easy it was to get distracted here. Especially when you were tired and looking for distractions.