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xp_logsEveryone winds up dealing with the library talking to them through a fictional character and delivering some uncomfortable truths in the process.
Marie-Ange trades verbal barbs with Frau Totenkinder (of Fables).
The work was going steadily - piles of haphazardly strewn volumes sorted and organized, nooks and crannies cleared out of their contents, and so on. It was definitely sweaty, exhausting work, and without any windows it was hard to keep track of the passage of time.
So it was...some time since the quartet from Xavier's had begun their efforts that Marie-Ange found herself rounding a corner into one of the reading nooks that they had set up, greeted by the rhythmic creak-creak-creak of a rocking chair and the accompanying click-click-click of knitting needles moving against each other.
"So," the chair's occupant, who had her back to the entrance, greeted Marie-Ange. "Broken your little Boy Blue, have you?"
Marie-Ange narrowed her eyes, and stared down the old woman. "Am I meant to make sense of that?" She took in the khaki cardigan sweater, the pearls, the reading glasses hanging on their chain, and then hooked the other chair with her foot and sat down in it. "I can ask vague personally insulting questions too. Is your blood sugar low? Shall I find you a gingerbread house to lure in children?"
She paused.
"Or a Planned Parenthood clinic?"
A single bark of laughter came from the woman. "Good, so you still can see with that eye you have left," she observed. "And yes, we can trade pointed observations if you like. I could ask about your Beast and his madness, and you could pretend to be insulted that I would compare you to Rose or Belle." She waved a hand. "And so on and so on. But whatever our faults, being honest about exactly who and what we both are has never been one of them."
"I hate that I know what you are referring to." Marie-Ange gave herself one moment to be just as irritable about this situation as it deserved. "Yes, I broke my Boy Blue, and my Beast is under a terrible curse, though I doubt true love will break it. There are no dying roses under a glass, or singing teapots. What of it?"
"You are breaking the things that keep you whole, girl," the old woman said sharply. "The things that keep you from picking up and walking off into the marshes and lowlands and making a gingerbread shack of your own. To get up on that pale horse and ride." All the while, her needles rocked back and forth, even though she never looked down at her work.
She really hated when everything talked in metaphors. Even if they were easy to pick through. "I am not going to live in some hovel in the swamp." Perhaps she was going to take more moments to be irritable. "I suppose it is my fault for everything now, is that what this is? Tarot, you have not prevented all the horrible things that have happened and therefore it is all your own fault?" Marie-Ange snapped. "Even with this." She jabbed a finger at her eye patch.
The woman's face smoothed slightly. "That is your guilt complex talking, not me," she said mildly. "We may see what others do not, and have the steel to do what others do not..." One of the knitting needles flipped around in her grip and was suddenly a poniard, glinting and sharp. And then a moment later it turned and was a needle again. "But even we cannot prevent every single terrible thing there is. And the trying will only break you in turn."
So this was not the Tante lecture then. Marie-Ange leaned forward in her chair, refusing to sink into the cushion just to be spiteful. At least she would not be told to stop trying to prevent things altogether. "I prevent what I can, what I am capable of. I know what toll that takes, and my Boy Blue and Beast knew what I was asking of them." Even if perhaps not quite the scale of it. "Amanda knows. Topaz knows."
"Four." The woman snorted. "One of whom is broken, one of whom is gone away." She raised an eyebrow at Marie-Ange. "And how many others around you have you pushed away, or made no attempt at all to get to know?" She shook her head. "Four is not nearly enough for what is to come."
"Hypocrite." Marie-Ange spat. "Remember I know who you are. I speak German quite well. I know what your name means. Two a year, for centuries."
The woman's eyes twinkled. "Millennia, dear," she corrected. "And when one has lived that long, and used as many names as I have, the benefit is that none of them can be used to harm me." She shrugged. "And I am not the only one here who has made questionable decisions and sacrificed much for knowledge and power." Her eyes hardened and stared intently at Marie-Ange's eyepatch. Then they softened again. "And even I learned the benefit of kindness, and trusting in others. I received amnesty for my crimes, made their enemy my enemy, fought the 'good fight'."
Marie-Ange rolled her good eye at the elderly-appearing witch. "You speak very nicely of the good fight but you hold back information much as I do. How long did you go on knowing who your adversary was, before anyone else? What is your point, that I am not warm and charming and friendly? I do not have students to protect, there is no Thirteenth Floor for me, and if you know about my Boy Blue and my Beast, then you also know... " Her face twisted in thought, and then Marie-Ange shook her head fiercely. "You seem to know the sorts of things I can foresee, you seem to know my past, and you know what and who I have lost. I do not get the luxury of just discarding names to avoid being hurt. I pay a much bigger price than names and funding abortion clinics."
"You think that is all I have ever sacrificed, -Tarot-?" The creak of the woman's chair sounded almost like a crack as she leaned forward. It was clear that Marie-Ange's jibe had gotten under her skin, but she had some cuts of her own to deliver. "I was cast out by my tribe for the 'crime' of giving my body to a man who had told me he loved me. Because a pregnant lover would have been inconvenient when he was to wed to secure an alliance." She pointed a thin finger at the Frenchwoman. "And unlike you, this was a time when I could not merely go to another city for a sabbatical and then spend my blood money on a relative to assuage my conscience."
"No, you spent your blood sacrifices on revenge and power. What is your point, that we have both given up personal attachments for a better future? I know what I have done." Marie-Ange moved to stand, and found herself stuck to the chair. "I am not... " She started, and then let out a disgusted grunt.
"You're done when -I- say you're done, girl." Outburst over, the woman was back to rocking slowly as she continued to knit. "My point is that you need those personal attachments. It took me far too long to learn that, but you don't have lifetimes to get there." The project began to take shape, a length of black yarn on the one needle, red on the other. "You do have students to protect, you just have not bothered to connect with them."
"Not bothered is not the same as kept my distance." Marie-Ange's hands were folded flat in her lap, carefully still. "If one of those children wishes to do what Clea has, they can come to us, we are not a secret."
The woman clucked her tongue. "What, so the obligation is entirely on them? I would have thought your...aunt...had taught you better."
"I am not seeking out any more teenagers to break." Marie-Ange spat out. "You know so much of what goes on in a home not your own, you talk of how I've broken my Boy Blue and my Beast, and you do not even mention Artie, and I swear if you cast him as the Frog King I will scream until Amanda or Topaz arrive. I invited him into X-Force, I sent him out into my world, he trusted me and I've given him little else than headaches and scars."
"Perhaps you do not seek them out, but they will still seek you out. And when they do, your job is to recognize that people grow and make their own decisions, and keep them as safe as you can while still allowing them to stand on their own feet as the adults they've become." A soft shake of the head belied the hard words. "Not the Pinocchio you still see them as."
"Which part of scars and broken did you not understand?" The words came out almost raspy. "I see broken people, I see dead people, and if I get close to any more of them, I have to decide if I want to look someone in the eye and know I will be mourning a friend. I get to know, and I am done with it. It is heartbreak enough to see another Stephen Strange picking up our receptionist for a date. I am not going to see another Wanda burned out by chaos. No more. I am not going to build a shack in a swamp because I am not going to watch another Remy LeBeau die."
The woman snorted an involuntary laugh. "You see dead people. A Sixth Sense joke from a precognitive. How amusing." Her lips pursed. "So, you do not wish to mourn friends. Then you will die." It was said matter-of-factly, like absolute truth.
"I will die regardless, people do not retire from my line of work." Marie-Ange said. "Try a different threat."
"That you have no fear of your own death is not all that surprising," came the reply after a drawn-out assessing look over the horn-rimmed glasses low on the woman's face. "That you would be so cavalier about its impact on others is the problem. Especially after you have spent so long rebuilding from your sabbatical. If you keep on like this, soon you will have no one to come back to rebuild with."
If Marie-Ange could have, she would have thrown the chair at the old woman, but she was firmly stuck. Worst, it was not that she was physically stuck. Just that her body refused to listen to any thought of getting up and leaving, or doing any harm to any part of this immensely frustrating encounter. She could stand, and she did. She could pace, gesture, throw her hands in the air and let out a guttural noise of frustration. "What else would anyone have me do. I do not connect, I am alone. I connect, I burn people. I treat them like chess pieces, I lose the game, I reach out and let myself care and the people I love die. Over and over. Do you know what it is to look at a man and know you will send him to his death more than once?" She raked both hands through her hair, pulling hard on the ends. "I am so tired of grief and worry and anxiety and sending the men and women I love to pain and death and loss."
In that particular instant, the hardened witch gave way to a kinder, almost grandmotherly demeanor. "I do know what it is to see those things, dear," she said, reaching out to gently touch Marie-Ange's clenched hand. "But it is still better than the alternative."
"Stop. Enough!" All the energy had fallen out of Marie-Ange and she sat down on the floor, slumped up against the chair. "Stop trying to manipulate me. I work with the reigning queen of manipulation and she funds my paycheque. Just tell me whatever I have to do to get out of this hell of a library so I can keep my friends from being trapped here. Do you want stupid emotional declarations? Fine, I love them. Do you want me to make friends, I will invite whatever child shows up in the sun room to dinner. I will get Kevin waffles. I will do drinks with Wanda. Whatever it is, just, ugh. I have a boyfriend to comfort when we do not find him a cure for his cursed blood."
"I suppose that will have to do." As declarations went, it was a bit thin and forced, but still. "Go on, then," the witch muttered, waving her hand dismissively. As the Frenchwoman stood and walked away, eager to be rid of her, the woman returned to her knitting, a high collar trimmed in purple taking form on the small black and red sweater. "You had better keep that promise," her voice trailed after Marie-Ange, and then as she turned a corner, the steady creak of the rocking chair was gone.
Marie-Ange trades verbal barbs with Frau Totenkinder (of Fables).
The work was going steadily - piles of haphazardly strewn volumes sorted and organized, nooks and crannies cleared out of their contents, and so on. It was definitely sweaty, exhausting work, and without any windows it was hard to keep track of the passage of time.
So it was...some time since the quartet from Xavier's had begun their efforts that Marie-Ange found herself rounding a corner into one of the reading nooks that they had set up, greeted by the rhythmic creak-creak-creak of a rocking chair and the accompanying click-click-click of knitting needles moving against each other.
"So," the chair's occupant, who had her back to the entrance, greeted Marie-Ange. "Broken your little Boy Blue, have you?"
Marie-Ange narrowed her eyes, and stared down the old woman. "Am I meant to make sense of that?" She took in the khaki cardigan sweater, the pearls, the reading glasses hanging on their chain, and then hooked the other chair with her foot and sat down in it. "I can ask vague personally insulting questions too. Is your blood sugar low? Shall I find you a gingerbread house to lure in children?"
She paused.
"Or a Planned Parenthood clinic?"
A single bark of laughter came from the woman. "Good, so you still can see with that eye you have left," she observed. "And yes, we can trade pointed observations if you like. I could ask about your Beast and his madness, and you could pretend to be insulted that I would compare you to Rose or Belle." She waved a hand. "And so on and so on. But whatever our faults, being honest about exactly who and what we both are has never been one of them."
"I hate that I know what you are referring to." Marie-Ange gave herself one moment to be just as irritable about this situation as it deserved. "Yes, I broke my Boy Blue, and my Beast is under a terrible curse, though I doubt true love will break it. There are no dying roses under a glass, or singing teapots. What of it?"
"You are breaking the things that keep you whole, girl," the old woman said sharply. "The things that keep you from picking up and walking off into the marshes and lowlands and making a gingerbread shack of your own. To get up on that pale horse and ride." All the while, her needles rocked back and forth, even though she never looked down at her work.
She really hated when everything talked in metaphors. Even if they were easy to pick through. "I am not going to live in some hovel in the swamp." Perhaps she was going to take more moments to be irritable. "I suppose it is my fault for everything now, is that what this is? Tarot, you have not prevented all the horrible things that have happened and therefore it is all your own fault?" Marie-Ange snapped. "Even with this." She jabbed a finger at her eye patch.
The woman's face smoothed slightly. "That is your guilt complex talking, not me," she said mildly. "We may see what others do not, and have the steel to do what others do not..." One of the knitting needles flipped around in her grip and was suddenly a poniard, glinting and sharp. And then a moment later it turned and was a needle again. "But even we cannot prevent every single terrible thing there is. And the trying will only break you in turn."
So this was not the Tante lecture then. Marie-Ange leaned forward in her chair, refusing to sink into the cushion just to be spiteful. At least she would not be told to stop trying to prevent things altogether. "I prevent what I can, what I am capable of. I know what toll that takes, and my Boy Blue and Beast knew what I was asking of them." Even if perhaps not quite the scale of it. "Amanda knows. Topaz knows."
"Four." The woman snorted. "One of whom is broken, one of whom is gone away." She raised an eyebrow at Marie-Ange. "And how many others around you have you pushed away, or made no attempt at all to get to know?" She shook her head. "Four is not nearly enough for what is to come."
"Hypocrite." Marie-Ange spat. "Remember I know who you are. I speak German quite well. I know what your name means. Two a year, for centuries."
The woman's eyes twinkled. "Millennia, dear," she corrected. "And when one has lived that long, and used as many names as I have, the benefit is that none of them can be used to harm me." She shrugged. "And I am not the only one here who has made questionable decisions and sacrificed much for knowledge and power." Her eyes hardened and stared intently at Marie-Ange's eyepatch. Then they softened again. "And even I learned the benefit of kindness, and trusting in others. I received amnesty for my crimes, made their enemy my enemy, fought the 'good fight'."
Marie-Ange rolled her good eye at the elderly-appearing witch. "You speak very nicely of the good fight but you hold back information much as I do. How long did you go on knowing who your adversary was, before anyone else? What is your point, that I am not warm and charming and friendly? I do not have students to protect, there is no Thirteenth Floor for me, and if you know about my Boy Blue and my Beast, then you also know... " Her face twisted in thought, and then Marie-Ange shook her head fiercely. "You seem to know the sorts of things I can foresee, you seem to know my past, and you know what and who I have lost. I do not get the luxury of just discarding names to avoid being hurt. I pay a much bigger price than names and funding abortion clinics."
"You think that is all I have ever sacrificed, -Tarot-?" The creak of the woman's chair sounded almost like a crack as she leaned forward. It was clear that Marie-Ange's jibe had gotten under her skin, but she had some cuts of her own to deliver. "I was cast out by my tribe for the 'crime' of giving my body to a man who had told me he loved me. Because a pregnant lover would have been inconvenient when he was to wed to secure an alliance." She pointed a thin finger at the Frenchwoman. "And unlike you, this was a time when I could not merely go to another city for a sabbatical and then spend my blood money on a relative to assuage my conscience."
"No, you spent your blood sacrifices on revenge and power. What is your point, that we have both given up personal attachments for a better future? I know what I have done." Marie-Ange moved to stand, and found herself stuck to the chair. "I am not... " She started, and then let out a disgusted grunt.
"You're done when -I- say you're done, girl." Outburst over, the woman was back to rocking slowly as she continued to knit. "My point is that you need those personal attachments. It took me far too long to learn that, but you don't have lifetimes to get there." The project began to take shape, a length of black yarn on the one needle, red on the other. "You do have students to protect, you just have not bothered to connect with them."
"Not bothered is not the same as kept my distance." Marie-Ange's hands were folded flat in her lap, carefully still. "If one of those children wishes to do what Clea has, they can come to us, we are not a secret."
The woman clucked her tongue. "What, so the obligation is entirely on them? I would have thought your...aunt...had taught you better."
"I am not seeking out any more teenagers to break." Marie-Ange spat out. "You know so much of what goes on in a home not your own, you talk of how I've broken my Boy Blue and my Beast, and you do not even mention Artie, and I swear if you cast him as the Frog King I will scream until Amanda or Topaz arrive. I invited him into X-Force, I sent him out into my world, he trusted me and I've given him little else than headaches and scars."
"Perhaps you do not seek them out, but they will still seek you out. And when they do, your job is to recognize that people grow and make their own decisions, and keep them as safe as you can while still allowing them to stand on their own feet as the adults they've become." A soft shake of the head belied the hard words. "Not the Pinocchio you still see them as."
"Which part of scars and broken did you not understand?" The words came out almost raspy. "I see broken people, I see dead people, and if I get close to any more of them, I have to decide if I want to look someone in the eye and know I will be mourning a friend. I get to know, and I am done with it. It is heartbreak enough to see another Stephen Strange picking up our receptionist for a date. I am not going to see another Wanda burned out by chaos. No more. I am not going to build a shack in a swamp because I am not going to watch another Remy LeBeau die."
The woman snorted an involuntary laugh. "You see dead people. A Sixth Sense joke from a precognitive. How amusing." Her lips pursed. "So, you do not wish to mourn friends. Then you will die." It was said matter-of-factly, like absolute truth.
"I will die regardless, people do not retire from my line of work." Marie-Ange said. "Try a different threat."
"That you have no fear of your own death is not all that surprising," came the reply after a drawn-out assessing look over the horn-rimmed glasses low on the woman's face. "That you would be so cavalier about its impact on others is the problem. Especially after you have spent so long rebuilding from your sabbatical. If you keep on like this, soon you will have no one to come back to rebuild with."
If Marie-Ange could have, she would have thrown the chair at the old woman, but she was firmly stuck. Worst, it was not that she was physically stuck. Just that her body refused to listen to any thought of getting up and leaving, or doing any harm to any part of this immensely frustrating encounter. She could stand, and she did. She could pace, gesture, throw her hands in the air and let out a guttural noise of frustration. "What else would anyone have me do. I do not connect, I am alone. I connect, I burn people. I treat them like chess pieces, I lose the game, I reach out and let myself care and the people I love die. Over and over. Do you know what it is to look at a man and know you will send him to his death more than once?" She raked both hands through her hair, pulling hard on the ends. "I am so tired of grief and worry and anxiety and sending the men and women I love to pain and death and loss."
In that particular instant, the hardened witch gave way to a kinder, almost grandmotherly demeanor. "I do know what it is to see those things, dear," she said, reaching out to gently touch Marie-Ange's clenched hand. "But it is still better than the alternative."
"Stop. Enough!" All the energy had fallen out of Marie-Ange and she sat down on the floor, slumped up against the chair. "Stop trying to manipulate me. I work with the reigning queen of manipulation and she funds my paycheque. Just tell me whatever I have to do to get out of this hell of a library so I can keep my friends from being trapped here. Do you want stupid emotional declarations? Fine, I love them. Do you want me to make friends, I will invite whatever child shows up in the sun room to dinner. I will get Kevin waffles. I will do drinks with Wanda. Whatever it is, just, ugh. I have a boyfriend to comfort when we do not find him a cure for his cursed blood."
"I suppose that will have to do." As declarations went, it was a bit thin and forced, but still. "Go on, then," the witch muttered, waving her hand dismissively. As the Frenchwoman stood and walked away, eager to be rid of her, the woman returned to her knitting, a high collar trimmed in purple taking form on the small black and red sweater. "You had better keep that promise," her voice trailed after Marie-Ange, and then as she turned a corner, the steady creak of the rocking chair was gone.
