xp_logs | Yvette and Sarah - Kosovo - backdated to Thursday

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Following the funeral for her mother, Yvette and Sarah go to her father's family home. Things are about as difficult as you'd expect.

The house was the same as all of the others, small, apparently built in a hurry from surplus materials. And yet to Yvette, it yawned above her, full of potential menace. She hesitated at the door and looked over at Sarah.

"Maybe this is not such the good idea," she said.

Sarah looked over at her friend and put her hand on Yvette's shoulder. "Maybe not, but... is this something you'd regret not doing if you don't go?" It wouldn't be like she could change her mind and come back at the drop of a hat, after all. "If you don't want to, though, I'll understand." She was there to support her no matter what she wanted to do, or not do.

Yvette looked back to the door and sighed. "You are right," she said. "If I do not at least try, I will always wonder and when will I have the chance again?" Especially now her mother was gone and she had been rejected by the remaining family. "Well, here goes." She lifted a gloved hand and tapped gently on the door.

There was a long pause and then the shuffle of footsteps down a hall and the door opening a crack. The woman who looked out suspiciously was older, her face stern and closed off. She peered at the two girls and at the sight of Yvette, she gasped and began to close the door again.

"~No, please,~" Yvette said in Serbian, reaching out to stop the door. "~I need to speak to you, about Ivan Marinkov.~"

The woman halted at the name. "~Ivan?~" she replied, looking from Yvette to Sarah and back again. "~What do you know of Ivan?~" She didn't open the door any further, nor did her expression relax at all.

"~I think... no, I don't think, I know...~" Yvette stuttered, looking for the best way to say it. "~He was my father.~"

Barely were the words out of her mouth when the woman slammed the door in their faces.

Sarah had learned a few words in Serbian before coming, in the brief amount of time she'd had to prepare, mainly from a hasty Google search, and a few from Yvette, but she had no idea what had been said or what was going on now and was completely confused to see the door slammed in their faces.

She looked over at Yvette. "What the heck was that all about?" This had already been hard enough for her poor friend, she didn't need people slamming doors in her face and being rude to her on top of it.

"Apparently the honesty is not always the best way to be doing things," Yvette replied, bravely trying to make light of it. "She..."

They were interrupted by the door opening again, this time revealing a girl around Yvette's age, her expression both fearful and curious. "~You are the girl who..~" she began, but stopped herself, glancing guiltily over her shoulder. "~There is a cafe down the street, with green awnings. I will meet you there in an hour.~" Then the door closed again.

Yvette blinked, now as confused as Sarah. "That was... odd. But apparently she is wanting to talk to us."

Sarah looked from her friend, to the girl in the door, then back to Yvette. "Ok, yeah, totally odd." She had no idea how they did things in this country, however, so maybe this was normal behaviour, but Yvette's similar reaction didn't seem to match up with that. "At least she'll talk to us, I guess. Who was that, Yvette?"

Yvette began walking, leading Sarah away from the house and back towards the cafe they'd actually passed on their way down. "I think I know," she said thoughtfully. "But let us wait and see what she has to say, yes?"

***

An hour later, during which time they had window-shopped around the area and then found a quiet back table in the cafe (aided by the waiter who had seemed very happy to put Yvette somewhere out of sight), Yvette was explaining to Sarah about her family tree.

"...so I have two half-brothers and a half-sister," she continued. "I do not know so much about them, but I am assuming the girl is my sister. At least she is wanting to talk to us?"

Doing her best to keep up with it, Sarah nodded and sipped on the cola she'd ordered. It tasted a little different than what she was used to back home, but it could just be her mind playing tricks with her. "That's a good sign, I think. Well, once we hear what she has to say we'll know anyway." She hoped it'd be a good one, because her friend had already had a hard enough time with everything going on. Sarah reached over and patted her friend's hand encouragingly, then looked around the cafe for any signs of the girl they'd seen earlier.

Of course, that would be when she came in, looking as nervous as Yvette felt. She glanced around, looking for them, before coming over to their table. "May I be sitting?" she asked, surprisingly in English, her accent thicker than the red spiky girl's. Yvette nodded and answered in the same:

"Please, do. You speak English?"

"A little. I am learning it at the school." The girl took the vacant seat and ordered a coffee when the waiter came by. "If you do not mind, I would rather be talking in English than in Serbian. It is more..." She searched for the word. "Privacy making, yes?"

Yvette nodded, still confused by all the cloak and dagger, but allowing it wasn't a normal situation. "My name is Yvette. This is Sarah, from my school. She came with me to be the moral support."

Relieved to hear they'd be speaking English, Sarah smiled and offered her hand to the other girl. "Please to meet you." She looked back and forth between the two girls. "If you want some more privacy, I can sit somewhere else, if you'd like." She didn't think Yvette would really mind but given how apprehensive things had seemed back at the house it seemed like the proper thing to ask.

"No, it is all right." Yvette's tone was firm and she looked at the girl who she knew to be her half-sister in the eye. "Is it not?"

The girl hesitated, then nodded. "I am not minding," she said at last. "My name is Adrijana," she continued. "When you came to the door, you said... you said Ivan Marinkov was your father?"

Yvette nodded. "During the war. My mother was Albanian. Ivan and his men..." She let it hang. "I had the accident two years ago and needed the kidney transplant, here in Kosovo. They found my father in the prison, for war crimes."

Sarah simply nodded, not wanting to interrupt them as they spoke. She sipped at her soda and watched them as they conversed back and forth, reaching out to squeeze Yvette's hand when she paused, fulfilling her role as moral support.

Adrijana had flinched at the mention of her father's imprisonment. "...Yes," she said at last, her hands clenched tightly together on the table top in front of her. "I remember, visiting him. He was so..." Almost angrily, she turned back to Yvette. "Why are you being here? Why are you finding us?"

Carefully, Yvette squeezed Sarah's hand back, her face hardening slightly as her powers reacted to the emotional stress. "My mother, she died this week. Her family do not want me, because I am the reminder of her shame. I thought..." She shrugged a little. "I thought I would at least see what you were like, the family of my father. We are related, after all. I did not mean any harm."

"The child of his crime? And a... how you say? Monster?" Adrijana's tone was bitter.

"Hey!" Sarah knew that Adrijana's English was lacking and perhaps monster wasn't the word she was looking for - or so she hoped - but either way there was no way she'd let the other girl get away with calling her friend that. "You're related, you don't talk to your family like that."

"We prefer 'mutant'," Yvette added, somewhat stiffly - the word her half-sister had used had unfortunate echoes, following the shared nightmare, as well as Yvette's own fears. "And yes, I am a mutant. So is Sarah. The school we go to, it is a school where mutants can go, to learn their powers. They took me in when I needed the help."

Adrijana had the grace to look abashed. "I am being sorry," she said in a less angry tone. "The memories of what my... our father is doing, they are difficult. And my English is perhaps not so good." She glanced around the cafe, checking to see if anyone was paying attention to them following the outburst, and then leaned forward to murmur. "I, too, am being the mon... the mutant. It is something I am hiding for many years now."

Sarah's features softened somewhat as Adrijana apologized, and her jaw may have dropped a little when the girl admitted that she was a fellow mutant. "You're one too?" It made sense, given that she was related to Yvette, so it probably ran in her family. Thoughts of whether her twin sister was a mutant as well popped into her head, but Sarah banished them for the time being to focus on the present.

The other girl nodded again, unclenching her hands. "My hand-nails," she said, still in that soft tone. "They are very strong." To demonstrate, she drew the nail of her pointer finger lightly across the metal tabletop. It scratched the surface with a small screech, raising a thin ribbon of metal. "I am getting this when I am thirteen. I have to hide it from my brothers."

"They do not like the mutants?" Yvette asked, carefully.

Adrijana shook her head, tucking her hands carefully away again. "When Father is away, at the war, my brothers, they were the men of the house. They believe in a pure Serbia and wanted to join Father when they are old enough. If they knew I was one of the... forgive me, but in some parts of this country, mutants are the unclean, yes? If they knew, I would be made to leave. Or worse." She looked at Yvette. "It is almost as bad as being the Albanian or the Croat."

The Albanian girl's eyes dimmed. "Is that why your mother was closing the door?" Yvette asked, although she knew it was more complicated than that. Adrijana nodded.

"She would not want my brothers to be getting into the trouble with the police, if they are harming to the mutant girls. Better if they do not know you are alive - an Albanian mutant who is the child of our father during the war?" She shuddered a little. "It would not be safe for you."

Sarah looked down at the scratched tabletop, then back to Adrijana as she spoke. "Are any of them mutants too, or is it just you?" She wondered if there were as many mutants there as there were back home, and if they had a safe place to go like they did.

"Only me." Adrijana pressed her lips together and then added. "And my... sister, now."

It took a moment for Yvette to process that Adrijana was actually meaning her. "Our powers are a little the same," she pointed out. "My skin and hair is hard, like your fingernails. Perhaps it is something in our father's family, yes?"

"Perhaps." Adrijana looked at her watch. "I should be going home. Mama is wonder where I am." She hesitated. "I am sure you are having the questions, about our family, but it is not safe for you here. My brothers will be coming home from work soon. But perhaps..." She pulled out a notepad and pen from her handbag and scribbled down an email address. "That is the school address for me. My family is not having the access. Perhaps you can be writing to me?"

"Of course." Yvette wanted to stop her, ask her all the of the questions bubbling through her mind, but Adrijana seemed adamant about leaving. "Thank you, for talking to me. It is the difficult thing, to find out you have the sister so suddenly." Let alone the circumstances.

"It probably is, if you both share the same genes and all." It made total sense and got her thinking once again about her twin sister. Sarah looked a little uncomfortable at the talk about it not being safe and Adrijana's brothers coming home soon. She was glad when the other girl gave Yvette her address though, it'd mean a lot to her friend to be able to keep in touch with a family, she figured. "It was nice to meet you, Adriijana." Sarah smiled a little. "Thanks for talking to us when no one else would."

"You are... not how I am thinking the mutants would be," Adrijana admitted. "Thank you, for being the patient people with me." She gave Sarah a weak smile in return. "I hope you enjoy your time in our country."

"Hey, we've got to stick together, right? It's like we're all family, kinda..." Which immediately sounded awkward as soon as she'd said it, given that Yvette and Adrijana actually were family and all. "Thanks, I'm sure we will." Or she hoped they would anyway. Sarah looked to Yvette, hoping she was doing ok with it all.

Adrijana managed another weak smile and left, leaving some money for the coffee she'd left untouched on the table. Yvette watched her walk out of the door, strange eyes unblinking. Then, as the door closed behind the other girl, she let out a breath, seeming to sag.

"Not exactly the fun time, I am afraid," she said to Sarah wryly. "I am sorry, that cannot have been easy for you, listening to a family history that is not yours."

"You don't have anything to apologize for, Yvette." She patted her friend's hand again, and probably would've given her a hug had they both been standing up. "It couldn't have been easy for you, none of this is, I'm sorry you have to go through it." Sarah was there for support but even with help it still must be rough on her.

"I do not know what I was expecting," Yvette admitted, giving Sarah a grateful smile. "Perhaps something like the movies, with the happy reunion and such. But that is the silly idea, since we do not live in the movies." She reached for her glass. "After what my father did to my mother, to create me, I should have realised that perhaps he was not exactly the normal family man." Her voice trailled off with her thoughts, but then she rallied. "It has helped me to realise one thing, however."

"Aww, yeah, life is not like the movies most of the times. At least not for the good times, sometimes for the bad." She frowned and forced herself not to think back to those dark recent events. Sarah raised her eyebrows at Yvette's words. "Oh yeah? What's that, Yvette?"

"My true home, my true family? They are Xavier's." Her smile broke out then, reflected by the glow of her eyes.