Forge and Marie: Morning Reading

[x-traction.livejournal.com]

Forge drops by looking for Dani. She's stepped out, but he finds something else.



Forge sipped at his coffee, standing in the small kitchenette that he and Angelo shared. Almost on autopilot, he scanned through the morning paper, skimming for relevant or interesting phrases in articles, then deftly folding each article aside to read in depth later. He normally skilled the Media section, not caring much about local theater or the comics, but an article on Cheyenne art caught his eye. Reading through it, it occurred to him that Dani would probably appreciate taking a look at it.

Washing his mug out in the small sink, Forge tucked the newspaper under his arm and walked across the hall, knocking on the door of the suite that Dani and Marie shared.

"Coming," Marie said, setting the leather portfolio she'd been reading down on the coffee table, the pages flipping randomly. Opening the door, a brief look of surprise crossed her face before she stepped back and waved Forge into the living room of the suite. "Come on in."

"Howdy," Forge said brightly, holding up the newspaper. "Dani around? Found something she might be interested in."

"Nope, but she should be back soon if you want to wait," Marie said. "What is it?" she asked, looking curiously at the newspaper Forge was brandishing before returning her still curious attention to the recently returned mutant. She was still getting used to seeing the newly aged Forge.

"Exhibit on native Cheyenne art, figured it'd be right up Dani's alley," Forge explained, laying the paper down on the table and looking around. While the girls' suite was designed identically to his and Angelo's, the guys' common area was decidedly more spartan and utilitarian, and thanks to Laurie's occasional cleaning visits, disturbingly organized at times.

Forge's eye fell on a leather-bound book on a nearby table. Curious, he picked it up. "What's this?" he asked.

"That," she said, her voice lowering, "is evil incarnate. A gift from one Irene Adler during a recent mission...not sure if you're familiar with her from the X-Men files."

"Blind precognitive, recently involved in your rather unorthodox mission involving a nightclub excursion, and from what I gather, a general pain in your backside," Forge answered, turning the book over in his hands. He looked through the handwritten pages, frowning. "And she has a flair for bad poetry, it seems. Not uncommon with precognitives, or so I've read. The need to extemporize their visions in some artistic form. Angie paints, for example."

He closed the book and ran his fingers over the back cover, then paused. "Hello," he said with an astonished look on his face, "what's this here...?"

"What?" Marie asked coming closer to peer at the back cover. At first glance, she didn't see anything but when looking closer she saw what appeared to be ridges and bumps marking the leather.

Forge closed his eyes and ran his fingertips over the leather, back and forth, the metal of his hand tracing across the page almost mechanically. "It's Braille," he said after a moment. "Makes sense, if Irene Adler was blind, she'd probably have put at least one of her prophecies in a language only she'd be likely to read."

"You read Braille?" Marie asked, purposefully not asking what the prophecy said. Afterall, if Irene had written it with the intention of no one else reading it, well, Marie had no desire to read that particular bit of doom and gloom. "You should probably input it into the database then. When I scanned the diary, I didn't think to scan the covers so it won't be in there."

Forge nodded. "Taught myself when I first realized I had tactile sensation through my prosthetics. Helped me to focus fine sensation and motor control, and it's easier than hooking myself up to a monitor to get diagnostics. This, however," he tapped the book, is weird."

"He will speak bloody words and follow the path of ghosts when the past is undone," Forge read, flipping another page. "A lover's house will contain a new order. The queen of spades will stain her hands black and a tree cannot be broken. She will have to choose between her king of hearts or her own."

"Weird doesn't even begin to describe it," Marie said. "At least we've figured out that she's just as often wrong as right. And that we can only mostly tell what she's talking about after something happens. Precog seems to be the least useful power Ah've ever come across."

Forge just shrugged one shoulder. "Trust me, when you get into applying the theories of Heisenberg and Schrodinger to precognitive capabilities, it starts making a lot of sense. But then I have to go into quantum mechanics and determination theory, and it wavers into metaphysics, which is an area I try and stay well away from. Anyway, there it is." He handed the book over to Marie with a flourish. "I'll write it down for the database in a bit."

"Thanks," she said, though she looked anything but thankful at taking the book back. Dropping it rather unceremoniously back where Forge had taken it from, she pushed thoughts of the book and the prophecies it contained out of her mind. "So anyways...Ah'm sure you're already sick of talking about it, but Ah'm rather curious about what it was like being on Attilan. Might even have a piece of cobbler with your name on it in exchange."

Forge looked puzzled for a moment. "Why would I need shoes... pie! Right! Sorry, got a little confused. Yes, please. Living in Attilan..." He gave a smile and walked over towards the kitchenette with Marie. "For starters, it really helps if you like fish..."