xp_logs | LOG: Amanda and Warren (Reply)

Amanda and Warren on the flyer's platform. They aren't thrilled to see each other at first, but surprisingly enough, they bond. It even ends cute.

Spring was definitely approaching. The wind was still as cold, the sky as leaden and dull, but Amanda could feel a sense of... newness in the air. Life returning. She was sitting on the edge of the flyers' platform on the roof, letting the fresh air ease her headache and getting a moment's peace from the rowdiness below - once classes finished, the mansion tended to get a bit crazy, and the noise was more than she could deal with now.

Of course, once she'd thought that, Murphy's law kicked in, in the form of Warren returning from a brief flight.

Warren touched down and stretched happily. He loved flying, and he hadn't been able to do as much of it since the cold had set in. Today wasn't exactly warm, but it was better than it'd been the last few days, and the weather was showing hints of spring. Still smiling to himself he turned to grab the bottle of water he'd left on the platform, and as he did, he felt his wings knock against something. He turned to see a sullen Amanda sitting on the roof.

"Oh, it's you. Sorry. Didn't see you down there," he apologized politely.

"Nah, it's okay," she said, rubbing her head. The slight jolt had nudged her headache awake again. "'S not like you knew I was here. Just wanted some fresh air, t' get away from the madhouse a bit." She hesitated, then asked, carefully casually. "Nice flight?"

"It was a good flight. Weather's kind of gross today, but I think spring's approaching." He took a sip of water and added as an afterthought, "What are you doing up here, then?"

"It's quiet - me head's still givin' me trouble after yesterday. An'..." A faint blush coloured the girl's cheeks, although it could have been the cold wind. "An' I've got good memories of this place. Marie an' I were working on a flyin' spell - she was catchin' me, makin' sure I didn't kill meself fallin' off the roof. It was fun," she admitted, sounding a lot younger than she usually did.

Warren had been expecting a two-word answer and was surprised at Amanda's openness. He and Amanda had never really talked, but he'd figured that her less-than-friendly relationship with Piotr would have been enough to keep her from wanting to talk to him. "I see," he said. After a short pause, he continued, somewhat more sympathetically. "You must really miss flying. I don't know what I'd do if I had to give it up."

"'S the worst part givin' up the magic," she said with a small sigh. She was tired and her head ached and people were still giving her the cold shoulder, it seemed, and she just didn't feel up to being a bitch. And she had nothing against Worthington - even if his boyfriend was a pillock. "I always wanted t' fly, when I was little. An' I was just gettin' the hang of it." She shook herself slightly and changed the subject - fuck, she was getting maudlin these days. Moira had told her the mood swings were to be expected as she fought the addiction, but in the meantime, they were fucking annoying. "How's 'Yana doin'?"

Sensing from Amanda's weary tone of voice that this wouldn't be just a polite five-minute conversation, Warren indicated a spot next to her. "Mind if I sit?" She nodded, and Warren lowered himself onto the edge. "Yana seems to be doing alright," he said cautiously. "She's not great, but she's recovering as well as she could be considering the circumstances. I'm almost more worried about Piotr. He's really broken up about it. I don't think he even sleeps at night." He frowned, thinking about all the craziness of the past couple of days. "How are you doing?" he asked slowly.

"I'll live. Provided McCoy doesn't medicine me t' death." Amanda shrugged a little, careful not to jolt her head. "Head aches fit t' burst, an' I'm gunna be gettin' random nosebleeds for a while, but it's nothin' that ain't happened before. Magic's not as easy as it looks - the big stuff tends t' take it out of you." She looked over at him. "Still, it's good t' know neither of us was seein' things, right?"

Warren froze, feeling as though someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over his head as the shock of realization hit him. "Oh, shit," he breathed. He looked at her with something like terror on his face. "That face in the window... Belasco... I... I didn't realize." He shook his head. "So that's what that was," he said softly. He shuddered. "I didn't even think of it until just now. And I'm glad we all lived to tell the tale. But fuck-- that's some scary shit."

"Magic is scary shit sometimes; welcome t' my world," she muttered, mostly to herself. The she added, speaking to Warren again. "Thing was, I felt that bastard, I knew somethin' was wrong, only I was so busy feelin' sorry for meself over the whole potion thing that I didn't believe it. You could've lost her an' it would've been down t' me."

Warren reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He shook two out of the box and offered her one. "I think we both need this," he said quietly. He lit his own before holding the flame out to her.

Amanda took the offered cigarette gratefully and bent over the lighter, cupping her hands around his to block the wind. She coughed a little as she took the first puff, wincing as the movement set her head pounding some more. "Ta," she said, breathing out smoke. "'M just glad I was there t' go after her. There's things that shouldn't happen t' anyone, 'specially not a kid like that."

"Tell me about it." He took a long drag on his cigarette. "Not to mention everyone around her. The look on Piotr's face the first time I saw him after the incident, the condition of Remy down in the medlab, even the way you feel right now... And after that whole love potion fiasco..." Warren grimaced and closed his eyes. "I'd say we've had more than enough trouble around here lately to last us for, oh, about the next decade or so."

"True. But then we'd have t' make our own entertainment, wouldn't we?" Amanda said wryly and Warren snorted with amusement. They sat in silence for a moment, looking out over the mansion's grounds, and then Amanda said, suddenly: "Keep an eye on her."

Warren looked up swiftly. "What?"

"'Yana. Keep an eye on her. That long, over there..." Her face went stony, her eyes hard. "There's a lot that could've been done t' her, an' she's gunna need help. Piotr... he won't see it. He's too close."

He tensed at her warning. He didn't need Marie-Ange's tarot cards to see that the ordeal was far from over, and that although the worst was over, that didn't mean it would be smooth sailing from here on out. "I'll try," he said shortly. He took a puff on his cigarette, trying to relax himself. "Yeah, magic is scary stuff, or so it would seem... don't you ever get scared?" he asked carefully.

"Sometimes." The admission surprised her as much as him, but she'd been thinking on this all day, ever since her session with Samson, and reading people's reactions to Illyana's kidnapping in the journals. "Not as much as it should, which is part of the reason why I'm gettin' shipped back home. T' teach me t' be scared of it a bit more, give it a bit of respect. But yeah, there's some of it that scares the pants off me. It's not all rabbits an' hats and bleedin' Harry Potter." She took an almost angry drag of the cigarette in her hand. "It's not the safest thing t' be part of, but then again, I didn't get a lot of choice about that. Me mutation pretty much put a sign on me back that said 'get your mystical battery here'."

"Yeah, well." Warren exhaled a cloud of smoke. "It's a sad fact of life that we don't always get to choose our mutations, do we? Don't get me wrong, I love flying. It's just that sometimes... well, you know. I... yeah." After a pause, he added, "Have you ever even read Harry Potter?"

"Nicked the first couple of books t' see what all the fuss was about. Pitched 'em half-way through the second. Woman's got no bleedin' idea. An' they got all the spells wrong." Casting an almost-awed look at the great white wings arching over them, she asked. "How can you not like them? They're so... beautiful." She blushed again, and looked away. "If yer into that sort of thing."

Flushing almost imperceptibly at the compliment, Warren reached back, touching his own feathers. "Thanks," he said. He plucked one out and turned it over in her hands before offering it to her to observe. "They are nice, but... well... I don't know, sometimes I think I'd like to be able to walk outside without harnessing them for fear that people would run screaming... Then again, whenever I'm flying, I think that's such a small price to pay for what I'm able to do."

Running her fingers along the feather, Amanda marvelled inside at its softness, its strength. "People are pillocks," she said. "'Least over here they're more pillock-y than home. There's some place it ain't a good idea to be obviously a mutant, but then you get places like Brighton, where they don't give a rat's. There's even kids who fix 'emselves up t' look like mutants - mutant groupies. They're a right laugh. I used t' sell 'em glamours in return for them gettin' me into clubs." She offered the feather back to him, a little reluctantly. "Still, this isn't Brighton, as people keep remindin' me."

Warren looked at the feather. "Well, it's not like I can reattach it to my wings," he pointed out. "Mutant groupies, huh? That's something you'd never see in America. Are you looking forward to going home for spring break, then?"

"I would if I wasn't goin' t' be spendin' the whole time locked up in a magic commune," she said, tucking the feather carefully away in her jacket and then pulling a face. "Pete's arranged intensive trainin' for me, t' teach me not t' be a bad witch no more. So I'll be spendin' most of the time studyin', I expect." Then she brightened. "Some of the others are comin' back with me, doin' the Tour. I'm hopin' t' talk Rom into lettin' me take 'em down t' Brighton for a weekend, go clubbin'. A last hurrah, I s'pose. There's no guarantee they'll let me back here."

"Well, at least the clubbing sounds fun." Warren took a final puff and let his cigarette drop onto the ground below. "A bad witch?" he inquired. "How are you a bad witch, exactly?" He looked over at the hunched figure next to him and a surge of sympathy ran through him. A girl her age should be worrying about crushes and grades, he thought, not dealing with all the demons of Hell or whatever it was had happened to Illyana.

"Seems like a lot of people didn't take too kindly t' the love potion idea," Amanda replied with a sigh. "An' considerin' how many people I fucked up with it, I can't say I blame in. I told 'em I didn't give it to anyone, but I did make it, an' no-one knows who did use it, so I'm coppin' the flack. But Rom's right, I need trainin'. She's findin' me a tutor, but that ain't easy either."

"So you need a lesson in ethics?" Warren asked. "I see. Well, good luck with all of that." He drew out another cigarette and lit it. "I was planning on going to Russia with Piotr and Yana for spring break, but I really doubt they'll be in any condition to go, considering. So I don't know exactly what I'll be doing while you're off at your non-Hogwarts witch school."

"Yer young, yer rich an yer attractive - I'm pretty sure you can find somethin' t' do." Amanda's tone was wry, but not nasty. It was pleasant, talking about ordinary things to someone who wasn't about to accuse her of setting up people to get raped.

"I'm sure. I just don't know what yet... I guess I'll see what Piotr wants to do." Noting that her cigarette was almost out, Warren held out his box to her. "Seems the cigarette's helped get rid of your headache, eh?"

"Gotta love the Vitamin N." She took another, lighting it from the butt of the previous one and then stubbing that one out on the platform beside her. "It ain't gone, but it's better. Can see straight now, at least. Magic hangovers are worse than the other kind."

Warren raised his eyebrows, amused. "Considering that magic is probably somewhat more potent than liquor, yeah, I'd guess so. Not that I'd know." Warren leaned back on his free hand, observing the clouds. "Do you like being a witch?" he asked suddenly.

Amanda blinked, surprised. No-one had ever asked her that before. "Um. Dunno. I s'pose so." Her fingers played with the buttons on her coat. "I've been one so long I ain't never thought about not being one. An' I got t' say, this last week without magic has been fucking hard." Taking aother long drag on the cigarette, she frowned. "Sometimes I worry, 'bout what it's makin' me into. Magic's not like havin' a power, you see. There's a price involved in everything you do. I didn't used t' get that, but I am now. An' sometimes I wonder if the price is too much." With a shrug, she dismissed the idea. "Not that I can do anythin' 'bout it now anyway. It's what I am." She looked at him, grinning impishly. "So, do you like bein' a fabulously handsome playboy?"

Warren laughed. "Why, Miss Sefton, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to pick me up." He exhaled smoke, "I guess that, like you, I'd never thought about not being one. At least until I got to the school." He blushed a bit, thinking. "I never even realized how privileged I was until I met so many people who... weren't," he confessed. "Like it's hard enough for me to understand being middle-class sometimes; I can't even begin to fathom some of the hardships people here have had to go through. Sometimes I feel bad, but I didn't choose to be born rich any more than someone else chose to be born poor." He turned to look at her, still flushed. "But I try not to seem too snobby and sheltered, so let's keep this between us."

"Who'd I tell?" She shivered in the growing chill - the day was wearing towards evening. "Guess none of us chooses how we're born. It's the stuff you do with what yer given that's important. You seem t' be doin' all right." She finished the cigarette, stubbed it out beside the other, and wrapped her coat around her. "An' as pleasant as this has been, I'm gunna love you an' leave you. I'm freezing me arse off."

Warren smiled at her, and tossed his second cigarette down. "Yeah, think I'd better be getting inside as well. There's a cold going around, in case you hadn't noticed. And it looks like it's going to rain. Wouldn't want to risk it." He turned, opening the door for her. "Ladies first."

"Well, there ain't no ladies here, so I guess I'd better go first," she chuckled. As she passed him, she looked up at him. "Must be losing me touch, if yer gotta ask if I'm tryin' t' pick you up."

Warren winked as he stepped in after her. "How do you know it's not all a part of my plan?" he joked. He turned away from her to return to his room, but stopped. "Hey, Amanda?"

She glanced over. "What?"

"I know how much you must miss flying, and I'm offering. One free ride," he said.

A look of pure pleasure crossed her face, and she forgot to make a suggestive remark about his phrasing. "You'd do that? For me?" When he nodded, she smiled, an actual smile, not the mocking grin she hid behind. "Ta. I'd... really like that."

"It's a date, then," he said, and turned back to his room.