xp_logs | (no subject)

Ororo and Callisto meet in the garden; some things are destroyed, some are built. Neither woman comes away happy, however.

Ororo had just finished an intense run around the perimeter of the lake. Usually she liked to save her workouts for the early morning or the late evening, when everyone else was in bed or otherwise occupied, but with the only other task facing her that afternoon the grading of several essays on Pride and Prejudice, a run seemed like a much preferable way to spend her time. The idea of facing Kyle's take on the classic story was something she felt deserved quite a bit more preparation. And perhaps some peach schnapps.

Calling a cooling breeze to follow her as she headed back towards the mansion, Ororo slowed her steps in order to look over the various flowerbeds and hedges. Between Cain's efforts with the grounds and her hand in the gardens, things were looking quite lovely, and she was pleased. Everything was as it should be.

Or at least, it was until she heard the increasing roar of a rather powerful engine coming from somewhere behind her. Ororo turned just in time to see a black blur approaching, and a moment later resolved a slim figure, clad only in what looked like dark pants and a vest, on a bike careering along one of the neat garden paths, showers of gravel being thrown up in its wake like water spray from a jet ski. As if this wasn't destructive enough a moment later the bike took a diagonal turn across one of the neat green squares of garden, ploughing over two flower beds, and churning up turf and dirt behind it. It was heading straight for Ororo.

At the last moment, however, the biker lifted her head, dark hair flying around her face, and turned sharply a full three-sixty, skidding on the pebbled pathway and coming to a stop a few yards away, facing Ororo. Resting one foot on the ground, Callisto lifted her hands from the handlebars to stick them in her pockets.

Ororo opened her mouth, but absolutely no sound came out as she stared at the woman in front of her. The torn-up flower beds lay there like hapless victims of a terrible and thoughtless crime, bright petals speckled with soil.

"What do you think you are doing?" she asked finally, her voice perfectly level and calm. Overhead, a few stray clouds drifted across the previously clear and sunny sky.

"Just tuned-up. Needed a test run."

"Perhaps you had not noticed, but we have an abundance of driveways and roads made just for that express purpose," Ororo told her crisply. "Far better suited for riding on than the gardens."

Callisto slung one of her legs off the bike, dismounting and flipping the stand out with a foot before stepping away, kicking some pebbles as she advanced a few steps towards Ororo.

"Sure," she conceded. "But that's an off-road bike."

"You cannot be serious."

Raising her eyebrows, the brunette was either entirely serious, or very good at 'deadpan', as she only pulled a hand out of the pocket of her overalls (well, 'over-halfs', the way she wore them) to gesture towards the vehicle. "Sure I am. Look at those tyres. It's meant for rough terrain. That's about as rough as it gets around here. What was I supposed to do? I'm not actually allowed to 'requisition' vehicles to 'remove them from the premises'..." The quotes, though not visually cued, were clear from her tone.

"Well, then, if you're restricted to the premises, I am sure you won't mind spending some time repairing the damage you've done." Ororo turned stiffly and stalked over to one of the beds, kneeling down and raking her fingers through the debris. About a dozen plants had been uprooted; half of those were shredded beyond salvation. "These beds will need to be tilled again, and new blooms planted in the open spaces. And the path will need to be redone..."

"I'm a mechanic, not a gardener."

"Mechanics fix broken things, do they not?"

"They tend to specialise in the inorganic," Callisto said with a smirk.

"Then consider this a broadening of your horizons." Ororo stood and turned back to Callisto, her expression solemn. "I will show you where the supplies are kept."

They had started with the turf. Fortunately, with grounds the size of those of the mansion, there were always areas being maintained and therefore always fresh turf somewhere around, and so it wasn't long before Callisto was flattening and re-turfing the grass, and Ororo, unable to face just walking off and leaving the garden in this state, stalking the damaged area with a notebook, working out just exactly what needed replaced, what she could cultivate from elsewhere, what she'd need to order in. Though the weather had been clear and fresh before it seemed oppressively hot and humid to Callisto now, the air sticky and almost oily, and exactly the conditions in which one didn't want to be working outside.

"Be careful," the silver-haired woman said shortly as Callisto jabbed at the turf a bit too hard with a trowel. "You are creating a home, here - you do not want to disturb anything or upset the balance of things."

Callisto muttered something under her breath that definitely included the words 'balance' and 'disturb' but was otherwise probably fortunately indistinguishable. She could feel the sweat pooling in the grooves of her back, soaking through her vest, trickling downwards, adding to a generally unpleasant situation. Never having had to appreciate how lucky she was not to also be aching from head to foot by now as many others would, this felt quite bad enough. "Could you turn the heat down a bit already, weather girl?" she snapped eventually.

Ororo frowned, pausing in the notes she had been jotting and allowing her eyes to grow blank and white. A cool breeze brushed over Callisto, and the few remaining clouds in the sky drifted to cover the sun. Almost immediately it seemed more tolerable, though Ororo took some small pleasure in knowing that she was able to reach the callous woman somehow. "I am sorry. My control is linked to the state of my emotions - when I am disturbed it becomes more difficult for me to keep things pleasant." Something you may want to keep in mind next time you decide to take anything for a 'test ride'.

Callisto rolled her eyes and sat back onto her heels for a moment, running a grimy hand across her brow. "If this is what happens when someone pulls up a couple of flowers, remind me to avoid you when you're PMS-ing."

"Or perhaps you could just avoid the property damage in the future," Ororo suggested, arching an eyebrow.

"Sure, sure, whatever. I'm sure this place never gets damaged in any way. It's not like it houses half the mutants in the Northern Hemisphere..."

"When the children make a mess, we expect them to clean it up, too."

Callisto almost winced. She glanced up at Ororo, a small, wry smile flashing briefly across her face before she bent back down to her digging. "I suppose that puts me in my place," she said quietly.

Though she had been entirely set to chastise Callisto some more over her careless behavior, Ororo could tell by her reaction that at least some of the message had already gotten through. Setting her notebook on a nearby bench, Ororo came to kneel by the flowerbed again, picking up the uprooted plants and brushing them off before separating them into two piles. "We all have things we take pride in," she said almost conversationally, gently placing a bedraggled geranium on the grass. "This garden is one of my favorite places at the mansion. I enjoy when it looks nice - not because I care to impress other people, necessarily, but because of something more than that. Does that make any sense?"

Callisto lifted her head, narrowing her eyes at Ororo thoughtfully. "You confuse me."

This, too, hadn't been the reaction Ororo had been expecting. "How so?" she asked, tilting her head to one side.

Standing and brushing loose dirt from her knees Callisto wandered over to retrieve more turf from the pile nearby. "I've seen you. You're out there, saving lives, averting disaster or whatever, doing the righteous superhero thing."

Shovelling a large pile of turf that would probably fall off a spade wielded by most, the young woman turned and made her way back over. "And then there's that man, that... thing. I watched him slaughter almost everyone I knew. Personally. And you? You're fucking him. Is that exciting for you? Do you have a thing for bad boys because honestly, that's tired... I guess at least you have that in common - scarring me.

"And then this. Gardening. The serene princess." The pile of fresh turf landed with a thud on the ground in front of Ororo and Callisto changed her grip on her shovel again to lay it manually, her movements neat and economical. Her eyes went to the end of the spade and she shook her head. "I don't get it."

"We do not know one another." The statement came out rather baldly, and Ororo frowned a little at it. "Obviously we have had encounters, and now we are coworkers, but... we still do not know one another. And I think the things you have seen - however you have seen them - would not make sense unless you did know me. As I am sure I would understand your motivations better if I knew you." And she did want to understand why this woman would turn her back on 'her people', and refuse to be the leader they needed now. "You confuse me as well."

Callisto snorted. "Me?" She shrugged before throwing her shoulders back into her work, dirt beginning to dry on her skin now that the weather had cooled. "I'm an open book."

"Then perhaps you are written in a language I am unfamiliar with."

This gained a Look and a lopsided smirk. "That's highly possible."

"Luckily I am quite adept at picking up new tongues," Ororo said with a smile, shifting closer to Callisto and scooping up one of the intact plants in her hands.

The other woman paused at this, opening her mouth to speak, then seemingly thinking better of it and merely looking back to her digging. "You don't want to know me. It's not that it's hard, just that in the end, people wish they didn't. If I were you I wouldn't try."

"I believe that the one thing we have established throughout all this is that you and I are not the same person. I certainly would never think of riding a motorcycle through someone's garden."

"And I wouldn't think of sleeping with a mass-murderer."

Ororo's expression, which had been pleasant up until a moment before, grew tight. "Remy risked his life to stop what was going to happen in those tunnels. I do not expect you to understand, Callisto, but he is not the man you hate. He has changed."

Callisto glanced up at this, raising her eyebrows. "I don't hate him," she said simply. "I know perfectly well what he does now. It doesn't change what he did then."

"It seems if we were all so stingy with granting second chances, you would not have a job," Ororo announced, standing. "And Sarah might not be alive right now."

"Oh I'm sorry..." Callisto said, straitening as Ororo did. "The way I remember it, the last time we met it was you who sliced my face open. But it's me that's getting the second chance here? Again I'm put in my place."

"That was an accident!" Ororo declared. The sky began to darken. "I never intended to hurt you. Believe what you will but that is the truth." She faced Callisto, the wind pulling at her hair. "It was a mistake."

Callisto shrugged. "I know. And yet, somehow, it's me that has something to prove, something to make up for. I'm the one on thin ice. What did I do wrong, huh? As far as you know, nothing. And the truth isn't so far off that." She shook her head. "And I thought maybe you'd've grown out of being the spoiled brat with the monopoly on morals."

"You know nothing about me." Ororo turned away, casting a glance to the nearly-finished flowerbed beside them. "We are done here."

"Sure, whatever you say," Callisto spat, driving the edge of the spade into the ground, hard, so that it stood upright beside her. "But d'you know what?" she added, advancing on the woman facing away from her, "I know more about you than you think. I know how bored you get, teaching and rule-making and walking the grounds. Sure, you like the flowers, but you're not really alive here. You get restless, you fly to the city and save the day and get the bad guys and fuck your boyfriend and even then, even in the air something eats at you. I know, because it eats at me too. Part of you is always restless, always looking for something new to fight." Ororo could feel Callisto right behind her now, breath almost tickling the back of her neck. "A tiny part of you is still the kid who cut my face open on the street that night. And you know what? I think I liked her better."

Jaw tightening, Ororo shut her eyes; when she opened them again, the sky was clear and sunny. She took a step forward, scooping up the battered remains of the flowers she had set aside and then turned, facing the dark-haired woman woman once more. "Good afternoon, Callisto," she said, nodding politely. "Thank you for your help." And then she left, heading back up the still-mussed garden path towards the mansion. It had been a long time since she truly needed that mask, but she was grateful for it now.

Callisto glanced around herself - at the work they'd done, the scattered tools, the offending bike parked on the pebbled walkway. She frowned. That should have carried with it a grim satisfaction. Instead, she just felt a little small. And in dire need of a cool shower.