xp_logs | Sooraya and Laurie

Laurie and Sooraya catch up and end up touching upon a pretty hefty topic.

Quickly glancing at her watch, Sooraya scanned the people on foot bustling by in front of Catseye's new business. Finally spotting the familiar blonde, she raised her hand and waived. "Hey, good to see you." She greeted Laurie with a grin.

"Good to see you as well," Laurie replied as she glanced around before moving toward her friend. Catseye's delicatessen seemed to be doing a brisk business, and she was glad, especially considering she couldn't see any cops right now. She'd seen them during the opening days and hadn't been particularly happy to recognize a few of the ones who'd held her during the murder trial.

"Hopefully there's sitting room in there."

"I think there is a small window seat over there. If we are quick..." Sooraya replied as they entered and quickly changed course to stake out their claim. "At least it means thing are going well. I was a little worried about that."

"You want me to order while you keep our place?" Laurie asked, looking at the menu board hung about the main counter, there was quite a selection and there was already a small line up in front of the counter as people ordered, or picked up their food. "Or I could hang out here while you go up, I'm easy."

"I can go up. Are you in the mood for anything in particular?" Sooraya neatly deposited her bag under the chair and glanced over at the board herself.

"Hmm, just something light right now, a piece of the pumpkin pie and a latte would be perfect." Laurie pulled out a little hook device and placed it against the side of the table before hanging her own purse from it.

“Sounds good. I might give the pumpkin one a try myself. Be right back." A few minutes later Sooraya returned to the table with the beverages and two pieces of pie. "Here you go."

"This tastes good." Sooraya commented after sampling the pie. "How did your set of tests go? I mean... you have finals at med school?"

"We tend to sit exams every few weeks, so not really," Laurie replied, taking a bite from her own pie. "But it's good, if a lot of work. I've been meeting with a study group recently, although I swear it's more a chance to gossip about everyone _not_ in the study group. I think we're even worse gossips then high school students. Yourself? How are things going at your job?"

"Pretty busy to be honest. I am currently trying to pull a staff together, while managing the renovations and it's interesting to say the least." Sooraya took another bite, enjoying the way it melted on her tongue. "I might be very close to finding a suitable director though, so that would be quite a relief."

"Oh? Anyone I might know?" Laurie asked as she took a sip of her latte and then another bite of her pie. This really was some of the most delicious food, and she made a note in her head to bring some of her friends from medical school with her here after class. Her study group would love this place, and sometimes it was good to take a break.

She grinned to herself as she imagined the shock on most of her friends faces at her thinking something like that.

"I don't think so." Sooraya shook her head before sipping from her fresh mint tea. "It's a couple who spend the last four years running a shelter for mutants in Tunisia, but they did spent time in Pakistan beforehand."

"Oh? What sort of work were they doing there?"

Laurie had always been interested in humanitarian work, it was one of the places Sooraya and she had a lot in common on and she enjoyed listening to her friend talk about the daily ins and outs of being part of that sort of work. She'd even looked into what she'd need to do in order to be part of 'Medecins Sans Frontieres' for once her residency and schooling were done.

It was a long way off yet, and she might not even want to do the sort of medicine that would be useful to that organization but she figured it was never wasted time to find out all her options. It was why she was still involved with Red-X despite the extra call on her time it was when she had so little right now.

"They worked for one of the more general NGO's, if I remember correctly. I believe she was involved with programs for battered women including shelters, help with the law and mental health care, while he worked on security issues for various programs. Together with their experience in Tunisia, I think that look quite promising."

"That does sound promising." Laurie murmured, taking another sip as she pondered what it would be like to have those experiences. It wasn't that she herself hadn't experienced quite a lot in her current life, but what would it have been like to have normal potentially life threatening experiences rather then bizarre, megalomaniac experiences that included genetic manipulation and being turned into some sort of hybrid killing machine.

It did not escape her how incredibly weird she'd become, it was a good thing she had friends or she might turn into one of those types they found buried under a pile of newspaper clippings after they starved to death when it fell on them.

"You seem suddenly far away." Sooraya commented on with a small smile. "What were you thinking of?"

"Mostly navel gazing," Laurie replied with a wry grin. "You ever wonder what we might have ended up doing without the genetic lottery win?"

"It depends on if I would have been taken or not... but I think there would be a huge chance I would be married, with two or more children." Sooraya stated with an air of someone who had considered the question quite a few times. "I might have been a refugee, I might have lost my life in child birth or some other circumstance. It's impossible to predict."

"I'd have been an athlete, I had it all planned out when I was younger but they don't let mutants compete."

She'd been bitter at that at the time, angry at her mother for getting involved with her father and scared as hell. Xavier's had given her another goal and she was grateful for it.

"I'm not sure if I believe in a creator these days, but they've got an interesting way of going about things if there is."

"We all make our own choices. Though humans often do seem to make quite a mess of it, even with the help of Allah. He might guide us, but the choice is ours in the end." Sooraya shook her head, trying to remember what she has learned about the principles of qadar.

"We do, and the choice is ours but I find these days that people use religion, and God as an excuse for a lot of things. Holy texts are not a reason to behave like an jerk."

Laurie frowned, it had been something she'd been coming to for a long time now. The disconnect between faith and religion as it was used currently.

"People have always been good at using all kinds of things for their own ends. The end result of what most people call free will, I suppose." Sooraya paused for a moment to order her thoughts and carefully ventured: "It can be hard to find replies to the modern world as it is today in the old worlds... The wisdom is there, but how to apply it? Also, especially with the things we have seen and experienced... those only make that more complicated."

"I guess the people who were writing back then didn't exactly foresee things like mutants, which just goes to prove that it was all written by humans, not by the creator whoever, or whatever that is. Which is yet one more of many reasons that I just can't be sure anymore. I think it must be nice for people who never actually question anything, they at least get the joy of obliviousness."

Laurie sighed and took another drink from her latte, shaking her head at her friend as she made to respond.

"I don't mean to put you on the spot either, I'm sure there's something much more interesting we could be talking about then my crisis of faith."

"Or things like Limbo? Or other forms of magic." Sooraya commented in a low voice. "And I don't mind talking about it. I think we all have times where we try to puzzle out the big questions."

"I think the yard stick to use is if your holy text, whatever that happens to be is telling you to do things that hurt people, whether that's yourself or others then it's wrong to follow it. I know most religions like to say that their written texts are without fault but I really don't think any creator I would want to follow would punish its creations for just living."

A small smile covered Sooraya's face as she easily replied: "I'd say it's often more the interpretation the people give to the words that causes issue then the words themselves. We only have to turn on the tv to the news to see how easily people can twist well-intentioned words."

"Perhaps, although I personally think all religion is flawed. Anything that asks you to have blind faith and obedience is trying to sell you something."

Laurie sighed and took a bite of her food in an attempt to think of a slightly less fraught topic. Since Genosha, her ability to believe in anything had suffered.

"It's complicated." Sooraya commented after a few moments of silence. "Maybe it's easier to say that both sides have something of a point? While my faith is a comfort to me, I can understand the fear of the darker sides of it as well."

"I think every faith has darker sides, but even the good stuff can be tarred with injustice and prejudice. When people use doctrine to bully others, or deny people their rights, that's just as bad as say attacking a school with a gun because you think Jesus is telling you you have to get rid of all the heathens."

Laurie smiled wryly and took another sip from her drink before she continued, not wanting to leave it there or to make Sooraya think she was completely anti-religion.

"I'm just disillusioned these days is all, it makes it hard not to be super critical of everything I see. I'm sorry if I'm putting you on the spot."

"It's okay, Laurie. Don't worry about it." Sooraya sipped her own drink. "I think what we can at least agree on is that you have to keep thinking, not just to assume things."

"I think we can definitely agree on that."