Wanda and Amanda with guests

[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

At the end of a work week, finally on the road to recovery, the last thing Wanda and Amanda expect are guests.



Wanda paused with her finger marking the line she was reading so she could glance up. "Amanda?" she called out, voice loud enough to carry. It was amazing how the number of books stacked around her could dampen one's voice. "Do you have the texts from our friend in Egypt? I think I may have found something in the books that Marcus lent me from Switzerland that seem awfully familiar." Her voice took on a wry tone. "Also, can you please tell me if I happen to have ink on my nose? Again."

"Just a sec!" came the muffled response. A minute or so later, Amanda appeared around the edge of Wanda's cubicle, several large tomes bristling with post-it notes in her arms. "I was just cross-referencing resurrection rituals, trying to see if there's a common thread in all of them. You know, demon dimensions, possessing the dead, all that." She dumped the books on Wanda's desk and peered at the older woman's face. "No ink, but you do have a paperclip stuck in your hair again."

Wanda grimaced and, careful not to touch her still healing face, fished the errant paperclip out of the locks of hair that had attempted to eat the innocent office supply. "Did you find anything of interest?" she asked, nimbly scooping one of the large tomes up in one hand while she relocated her previous place in the other book. It took a little flipping through the one that Amanda had brought her but she found the section she was looking for. "And, no, 'whacked out', 'crazy', and 'insane' are, while appropriate as they may be, probably not the best answer."

Amanda shrugged. "Not really. Same old, same old. Esoteric rituals, calling on the gods, forbidden knowledge, blah blah." She leaned over to peek at Wanda's book. "What've you got, Boss Lady?"

"Nothing much but description that's used in this one spell description reflects word for word in this other one. It makes me wonder if the same person, or same influence, was used; interesting, considering the time and distance..." Wanda's musings were cut short by a short burst of noise from her desk phone. Dropping the book on her desk, she picked up the phone. "Yes, Mark?"

She blinked while he talked and raised an eyebrow at Amanda. "...well, then. Send them to the conference room, if you would be so kind. Amanda's here with me so we'll be down in just a second."

"We have a 'them'?" Amanda asked, bristling with curiosity. "What kind of 'them'?"

"It appears we've been inundated with apprentices," Wanda responded as she hung up the phone. Bracing two hands on the desk in front of her, she pushed and stood up, resting briefly against the cool wood. "Three, to be precise, and one you know. Kristoph Hagar from Germany."

"Jane's apprentice?" Amanda blinked, surprised. "And if I had to guess, I'd say the other two are from Africa and Japan, right?" She spoke lightly, but she was watching Wanda's reaction carefully.

Wanda nodded and gave her assistant a small, but genuine, smile. She didn't say much of anything as they stepped over books and papers to get out of her area and headed down towards but she was rubbing at the bracelet that she wore constantly around her wrist these days. As always, she set a ground eating pace that ensured that they arrived very shortly at the conference room doors.

Nudging them open, she stepped in and found herself the center of three sets of gazes. She simply crossed her arms and gave a warm, but slightly sharp smile. "I would apologize for keeping you waiting but I was unaware that you were coming," she said, heading towards the front of the table.

Kristoph waved sheepishly at Amanda from where he sat in between a statuesque woman who was very obviously her mother's daughter and a young Japanese man.

"Madam Maximoff," the woman said, bowing her head, "my apologies for our unexpected arrival. My name is Thema Konmlan; my friends are Kristoph Hagar and Sato Miyagi."

The young German had turned towards Sato and was busy signing everything Thema was saying.

Amanda gave Kristophe a slight smile, raising her eyebrows at him as she stood beside Wanda, arms crossed over her chest in an unconscious mimicry of the older woman. Everything about her stance screamed "protective" of the woman next to her. "Perhaps less apologies and more explanations might go further?" she suggested.

Kristoph shrugged but answered before Thema could. "We came here to thank you, the both of you," he responded, giving his friend a look. "After you sent us word about what happened, we grieved in our own way..." He swallowed thickly and concentrated on signing for a moment. "And then one day Thema showed up on my doorstep and bothered me until I went with her to locate Sato ... she's, ah, a bit bossy."

While she may have inherited her mother's grace and regal bearing, Thema was still young and she grimaced at Kristoph in a way that made Wanda smile. The young woman picked up where Kristoph had trailed off. "We realized we had an extraordinary amount of information and magic at our finger tips. Through our mentors, we had heard of your desire to tap into any magical network - we also heard, of course, that you saved their lives. And set my mother and her friends free after she made that horrible decision."

"And that made you seek us out...?" Wanda asked.

Sato tugged on Kristoph's arm and after a flurry of finger movements that Wanda couldn't follow, the German translated, "Our mentors owed you many boons for what you did for them and though they're no longer in this world, we feel the boons have transferred to us. We wish to repay you for what you have done."

"Wait... you want in on the network?" Amanda asked, dropping some of the hostility at the news. She glanced at Wanda. "That's... handy, to say the least."

"Yes," Thema replied, nodding. "My mother's ultimate actions went against her very nature and I wish to honor what she had done with her life previously. She helped Doctor Strange when she could; we want to continue that tradition."

"And," Kristoph said as Sato suddenly dove under the table, "we have gifts. Of a sort. Kind of." Sato reappeared and dumped books and scrolls across the desk. "There's more where that came from."

Her eyes widened at the information that had been tossed on the conference table like newspapers. These weren't the oldest texts the older mages would have collected but there were several that she had yet to see. "Good god," she said, putting a hand gently on one large book.

"Bloody buggering hell," Amanda echoed. "But this is... and that one's... Do you guys have any idea what you have here?" She looked up at them. "You said something about a boon?"

Across the table, Thema nodded and fiddled with a bracelet that almost matched Wanda's while the other two fidgeted slightly.

Wanda looked impressed. Sometimes getting a mage to part with information was almost as hard as getting a scholar to let go of some historical piece of important information. But she sensed the woman across from her wasn't done. She tilted her head and asked, "Your culture is steeped with oral history, is it not?"

Thema smiled. "Yes, it is. Tell me, what do you know of Anansi and the legend of his stories?"

"African trickster god," Amanda supplied, taking a seat of her own. "Not like Loki, more of a chaotic neutral sort - not good, not bad, just kind of there." Oh, Doug would be amused at her using some of his gaming terminology.

"Yes. Before Anansi, or so the legends go, there were no stories. They were all held by the Sky God Nyame - Anansi delivered to her four creatures and in return was rewarded with the stories of the earth."

Next to her Kristoph rolled his eyes. "The boon: all of our information, present and future; us into your network; safe houses in Ghana, Germany and Japan." He grimaced at his friend. "See, not everything needs to be steeped in ancient stories."

"And yet," Amanda drawled with a grin, "They still keep doing it." She glanced at Wanda, received a nod and added. "Welcome to the family."