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xp_logsSharon meets Illyana and Namor, and shenanigans (of the screw around and find out variety) ensue. Namor possibly gains a new nemesis, and Illyana does not get to give Sharon a pat on the head.
The gentle folding and unfolding of the tiny wings preyed on her mind. She had trailed the stranger from the chapel to the lakehouse, slinking from bush to bush to bush as she tried to discern the precise mechanism of their movement. Every step seemed to bring another twitch -- but an active twitch, not the bounce of a vestigial appendage. It was maddening. She had stalked him all the way to the lake with no more enlightenment than she'd started with.
Finally, because she could resist no more and subtlety was for cowards, she stepped out of the foliage.
"I do not understand how those attach."
The stranger was shoeless. This did not seem to hinder him as he stalked from the chapel to the lake in a very single-minded manner. His path was almost completely a straight line toward the lake — shoulders down, neck held long, eyes fixed in command of a goal. Those gray blue eyes, squinting, were almost all that swiveled over to the speaker with just the tiniest movement of his neck. Only those same tiny wings, in unison, seemed to move like little rudders to follow his stare.
"You dare to approach Our Majesty as I seek balance. Dangerous."
The large purple cat cocked her head.
"Balance? Is this because you walk burdened by inexplicable wings?"
"You talk burdened by inexplicable thoughts."
"It is inexplicable to seek understanding? Respectfully disagree." The cat crouched low to the ground to get a better look at the wings gracing Namor's ankles. White feathers glowed enticingly in the summer sun.
Those eyes slid over the cat with all of the calculation Namor would offer to any other human or mutant. A speculative once over: player or pawn, it asked. Tool or threat? It was over in seconds.
"No. But understanding must wait," he added crisply. With a small hop on the Atlantean's part, his wings began to beat in rapid little figure-eights, filling the air with a hummingbird twitter as they lifted him from the ground. A subsequent lunge forward shot him gracefully through the air and toward the lake.
Illyana had left the chapel several minutes after Namor, fully intent on passing out in her own room for a bit, but hearing his voice and seeing him lunge through the air turned her mind to mischief instead. One of her short portals opened just a few feet in front of him, giving him a split second to decide on barrelling through or swerving even closer to the lake.
She received neither option. Grinning at the prospect, Namor hit the breaks mid-air quite literally as he hinged his legs into a curl, slowing. Digging his heels back, his tiny wings beat even more rapidly as he braced against the air itself to shoot upward a hair's breadth from the portal. Challenge accepted.
"Clever!" She called up at Namor, still walking forward. She stopped abruptly as she saw the other person... demon? Probably not demon, the wards hadn't pinged. Well, not hostile, at least. She didn't ping them either. "You are purple and look like large cat. Name is Illyana. Hello."
Sharon automatically raised her nose to sniff the young woman and instantly sneezed.
"You are blonde and smell like brimstone and winter," the cat replied. "I am Sharon. And that one should not be able to fly. It is an anatomical impossibility."
Namor had looped up and around and was closing distance fast towards Illyana and the cat. "My turn, your majesty," he announced as the flying merman barreled at speed straight towards Illyana, impossible or not.
"Place is full of impossible thING-" Illyana's voice went up sharply in surprise as Namor barreled into her, fingertips digging into the flesh of his arms as she was hoisted easily off the ground. A few seconds got her breathing under control, and she looked down at Sharon. "Impossible things as common here as impossible men," she continued, lifting one finger to point at her teammate. "Brimstone smell is because I am Queen of Limbo."
Sharon tilted her head quizzically at the tangle of figures hovering above her. "You are very flexible?" she asked.
Illyana blinked at her. "What." Her voice was confused, a little flat as she tried to figure out what flexibility had to do with her status. "I am normal flexible for human? Maybe bit better, have experience kicking high." She tilted her head back to observe Namor. "The purple cat woman does not make sense. Explain."
Namor, who was still intently grappling Illyana in a stable hover, sneered just a little as he looked from Illyana, to Sharon, and then back. The smallest, expasterated flash of teeth. He did not relent or release his hold, but there was no clear escape from this conversation.
"This creature appeared asking questions about what is inexplicable. She must be complimenting your ability to straddle two worlds."
Sharon watched the two grappling in midair. This conversation made her feel as if she'd walked into a new messageboard and stepped directly into an inside joke. She didn't like the sensation of being wrong-footed. That was her job.
"Are impossible wings required for flight?" she persisted, unwilling to accept that perhaps the laws of physics were not as absolute as she had always believed. "180 degree rotation. Motion traces figure eight, like hummingbird wings that allow for hovering. Seems to be correlation to body movement."
Namor actually sighed. "My wings are a gift. My people have fins and strength to master the water, and I was given wings and ears to that point me to conquering the sky."
"Think he is just lucky that way," Illyana replied to Sharon. "Impossible wings, impossible man, impossible place. Makes perfect sense. Limbo is also place. Hell dimension, one of many."
"Ah, another dimension. Clint told me of those while I ate his hamburgers. Was puzzled. Here limbo is a game. To my knowledge no versions that involve brimstone. Even version in Catholic theology is notably free of burning." Sharon circled beneath the two combatants, her eyes still fixed on the flicking wings on Namor's heels.
"Catholic version does not have actual demon, I think. Maybe. Have not been, it is not same hell dimension. Not quite same as portal, either. More like... slices of cake, is maybe best analogy? Is not exact, but gives good visual. Each dimension is separate, but cake and frosting and other topping can be in same bite, yes? Limbo is like that, can mingle and sometime overlap with earth small bit." Illyana was not sure if it was a good description, but it was hard to explain the smashing of 4 and 5-D space in a 3-D world.
"Multiple hells. So different from wormhole thing." Sharon sat, watching them, her tail twitching. "Portal different than Clarice's also. Smellier."
"Oh good, you know portals. Yes. Portal go through Limbo, even briefly. Was there when I learned, so portal is anchor there. Hence smell, although human nose is weak, mostly cannot smell it. Your senses, they are very good. Would give you pat if I was on ground. Am understanding that is way cat and dog like praise."
"That is a thing you will have to earn," Namor clarified. They were still in combat, or at least he wasn't going to relinquish any ground merely because this cat had questions. One must never waver on account of cats.
"You are lucky I am not scared of heights," Illyana sniffed. They weren't terribly high and she could just let go, but hovering was fun. "Otherwise would scale you like tree, end up perched on head with terror. Sharon could jump up, see if you hold two people at same time."
"Sharon could do that," Sharon agreed. She thought about it.
"Sharon will."
Nine weeks on the streets had taken off some weight, but even a malnourished body bore some weight when its frame was nearly six feet long. A purple flash of bones, muscle, and fur launched into the air and straight for Namor's back while Illyana still occupied his front. The benefit of hands was that she didn't have to use claws to grip. Locking your arms around a target's center mass worked just fine.
"Wings still make no sense!" yowled the cat, waist-level.
"It is clear a demonstration is in order, then." Namor might thank the mutant gods that he had been blessed with increased durability and superstrength if he were prone to thanking abstract concepts, believing in gods greater than himself, or dwelling on his own abilities. Yet even with a pint-sized hellspawn in his grip and a cat scrambling at his nethers, there was only a brief dip in his hover and nothing playing across his features that might hint toward discomfort.
Instead, the group began to rise higher into the air.
"I do not fear heights," Sharon declared, undeterred. Her tail lashed. "I am good at landings."
They continued to rise. It might have been hard as the ground pulled away and the tops of buildings and trees started to become far more visible than usual, but the ragtag trio were drifting over the lake as well.
"I have portal, but Namor is fast and clever." Her fingers clutched tighter as they drifted towards the lake. "I am not dressed for dip in lake, Namor."
"You have every chance to yield, Your Highness," the flying man suggested playfully, but playful in the way an ancient emperor might bargain with men fighting to death for his amusement. His smile matched that tone. "Every chance."
As the group reached the peak of their climb, everything suddenly went downhill. Downwind? Down... lake? The sky was now the lake, and they were hurtling toward a sudden and inevitable wettening.
Anatomically impossible or not, Sharon discovered Namor's wings had one unambiguously effective quality: speed. Falling she had been prepared for. She'd fallen many times, and from many things. This, she quickly discovered, was an entirely different experience than plunging into a lake at high speed while hanging from the waist of a stranger like a complaining fanny pack. Sharon let go.
The ability to twist your own skin to get all four feet aligned with the ground had limited utility when there was no ground to land on. The end result was Sharon's first experience with both a large body of water and performing the feline equivalent of a belly flop.
Illyana, on the other hand, wasn't going to take a chance with missing her own portal. Or worse, ending up falling from some height into the dust of Limbo because she wasn't focused enough. Water, at this point, was probably inevitable. "Will not yield," she finally replied. Her voice was resolute, and she hooked her legs and arms more securely around Namor. "Will take you down with me, Majesty."
"Wrahhhh," Namor elegantly bellowed as the other two hit the water. If anyone was paying close attention, they might notice that his neck flexed to expose a set of gills that sighed with their own relieved breath of air. The water immediately moisturized his skin, whitened his teeth, and cleared Namor's cloudy disposition in an instant.
There were, of course, other things going on.
Illyana shrieked into Namor's ear just before they hit the water, clinging to him like a limpet as the water surrounded them. It was partially fear, since she couldn't swim at all, but that just meant she wasn't shy about digging fingers and nails into flesh as her hair floated out of the very loose ponytail she'd thrown it into.
Sharon's head broke the surface of the lake, her yowl of outrage already fully loaded.
"Wet!" Sharon shrieked, arms flailing as she speedran the process of discovering the mechanics of the dog paddle. "You have made me wet!" Her hindlegs got the memo and engaged, leaving her tail to thrash to and fro, arcing lakewater across the sky.
Namor emerged, bright and refreshed, flipping his hair back behind him in a glorious, cinematic spray of water. "Wet," he concurred.
"Wet," Illyana groused. "You okay, Sharon? That did not look like fun fall." Funny, and the only reason she hadn't ended up laughing was the speed at which she ended up in the water herself. Speaking of... she poked Namor in the abs. "Cannot swim, please take to shallow area," she requested politely. "Will get you back for this, one day."
There was a burbling wrrrowllll from Sharon, who had managed to synchronize all four legs and was paddling for the shore as they spoke. She was using her tail as a rudder in a way that somehow managed to convey deep personal offense. Soaked and stinking with lake-water, Sharon crawled to shore and glared at Namor as he came stroking up behind her with Illyana in tow.
"I am a cat," she said in the same accusing tones one might say 'you punched a baby'. Sharon started to shake, then did a double-take as she noticed the gill slits around Namor's neck.
"You have branchiae also?" she squawked. "Avian and aquatic adaptations? That is it. Jail! Jail for illogical fish man! Jail for one thousand years!"
Turns out it is remarkably easy to beat a cat to shore when one has wings. Illyana was deposited extremely gently on the shore, having been fished out of the water quickly upon her request. Those illogical, fluttering wings continued beating in soft, rhythmic mockery as the fish man landed nimbly near Sharon.
"We were in suspended animation in near five thousand of your years, Cat." Namor, completely nonplused by any of Sharon's accusations, ran a hand through his hair to shake off any water. "No human jail would be able to hold me."
Illyana just shrugged when the cat turned an inquiring stare to her. "Helped me kill many demons, would probably take over Limbo if I left him there," she added unhelpfully. "But will help you get clean after proper bath, brush out fur? I do own hair dryer with diffuse attachment."
Sharon glowered. It was a perfectly conscientious offer, but Sharon was soaking wet, and therefore wronged by all the world.
"No more baths," she said darkly. "I will dry in the sun as nature intended. Like the logically-shaped apex predator I am." She shook the water from her coat, immediately transitioning her look from 'pathetic animal' to 'novelty scrub brush.' With a final hiss at Namor, Sharon turned tail and disappeared into the underbrush.
"She is going to smell like lake stink and feel disgusting once dry." Illyana looked up at Namor with a frown. "I am stealing your shower and dry clothing. Lake water makes hair gross."
Namor nodded absently, but his eyes trailed the disappearing cat with a sharp, predator's glare. "Apex," he criticized, "She cannot even swim. Ridiculous."
The gentle folding and unfolding of the tiny wings preyed on her mind. She had trailed the stranger from the chapel to the lakehouse, slinking from bush to bush to bush as she tried to discern the precise mechanism of their movement. Every step seemed to bring another twitch -- but an active twitch, not the bounce of a vestigial appendage. It was maddening. She had stalked him all the way to the lake with no more enlightenment than she'd started with.
Finally, because she could resist no more and subtlety was for cowards, she stepped out of the foliage.
"I do not understand how those attach."
The stranger was shoeless. This did not seem to hinder him as he stalked from the chapel to the lake in a very single-minded manner. His path was almost completely a straight line toward the lake — shoulders down, neck held long, eyes fixed in command of a goal. Those gray blue eyes, squinting, were almost all that swiveled over to the speaker with just the tiniest movement of his neck. Only those same tiny wings, in unison, seemed to move like little rudders to follow his stare.
"You dare to approach Our Majesty as I seek balance. Dangerous."
The large purple cat cocked her head.
"Balance? Is this because you walk burdened by inexplicable wings?"
"You talk burdened by inexplicable thoughts."
"It is inexplicable to seek understanding? Respectfully disagree." The cat crouched low to the ground to get a better look at the wings gracing Namor's ankles. White feathers glowed enticingly in the summer sun.
Those eyes slid over the cat with all of the calculation Namor would offer to any other human or mutant. A speculative once over: player or pawn, it asked. Tool or threat? It was over in seconds.
"No. But understanding must wait," he added crisply. With a small hop on the Atlantean's part, his wings began to beat in rapid little figure-eights, filling the air with a hummingbird twitter as they lifted him from the ground. A subsequent lunge forward shot him gracefully through the air and toward the lake.
Illyana had left the chapel several minutes after Namor, fully intent on passing out in her own room for a bit, but hearing his voice and seeing him lunge through the air turned her mind to mischief instead. One of her short portals opened just a few feet in front of him, giving him a split second to decide on barrelling through or swerving even closer to the lake.
She received neither option. Grinning at the prospect, Namor hit the breaks mid-air quite literally as he hinged his legs into a curl, slowing. Digging his heels back, his tiny wings beat even more rapidly as he braced against the air itself to shoot upward a hair's breadth from the portal. Challenge accepted.
"Clever!" She called up at Namor, still walking forward. She stopped abruptly as she saw the other person... demon? Probably not demon, the wards hadn't pinged. Well, not hostile, at least. She didn't ping them either. "You are purple and look like large cat. Name is Illyana. Hello."
Sharon automatically raised her nose to sniff the young woman and instantly sneezed.
"You are blonde and smell like brimstone and winter," the cat replied. "I am Sharon. And that one should not be able to fly. It is an anatomical impossibility."
Namor had looped up and around and was closing distance fast towards Illyana and the cat. "My turn, your majesty," he announced as the flying merman barreled at speed straight towards Illyana, impossible or not.
"Place is full of impossible thING-" Illyana's voice went up sharply in surprise as Namor barreled into her, fingertips digging into the flesh of his arms as she was hoisted easily off the ground. A few seconds got her breathing under control, and she looked down at Sharon. "Impossible things as common here as impossible men," she continued, lifting one finger to point at her teammate. "Brimstone smell is because I am Queen of Limbo."
Sharon tilted her head quizzically at the tangle of figures hovering above her. "You are very flexible?" she asked.
Illyana blinked at her. "What." Her voice was confused, a little flat as she tried to figure out what flexibility had to do with her status. "I am normal flexible for human? Maybe bit better, have experience kicking high." She tilted her head back to observe Namor. "The purple cat woman does not make sense. Explain."
Namor, who was still intently grappling Illyana in a stable hover, sneered just a little as he looked from Illyana, to Sharon, and then back. The smallest, expasterated flash of teeth. He did not relent or release his hold, but there was no clear escape from this conversation.
"This creature appeared asking questions about what is inexplicable. She must be complimenting your ability to straddle two worlds."
Sharon watched the two grappling in midair. This conversation made her feel as if she'd walked into a new messageboard and stepped directly into an inside joke. She didn't like the sensation of being wrong-footed. That was her job.
"Are impossible wings required for flight?" she persisted, unwilling to accept that perhaps the laws of physics were not as absolute as she had always believed. "180 degree rotation. Motion traces figure eight, like hummingbird wings that allow for hovering. Seems to be correlation to body movement."
Namor actually sighed. "My wings are a gift. My people have fins and strength to master the water, and I was given wings and ears to that point me to conquering the sky."
"Think he is just lucky that way," Illyana replied to Sharon. "Impossible wings, impossible man, impossible place. Makes perfect sense. Limbo is also place. Hell dimension, one of many."
"Ah, another dimension. Clint told me of those while I ate his hamburgers. Was puzzled. Here limbo is a game. To my knowledge no versions that involve brimstone. Even version in Catholic theology is notably free of burning." Sharon circled beneath the two combatants, her eyes still fixed on the flicking wings on Namor's heels.
"Catholic version does not have actual demon, I think. Maybe. Have not been, it is not same hell dimension. Not quite same as portal, either. More like... slices of cake, is maybe best analogy? Is not exact, but gives good visual. Each dimension is separate, but cake and frosting and other topping can be in same bite, yes? Limbo is like that, can mingle and sometime overlap with earth small bit." Illyana was not sure if it was a good description, but it was hard to explain the smashing of 4 and 5-D space in a 3-D world.
"Multiple hells. So different from wormhole thing." Sharon sat, watching them, her tail twitching. "Portal different than Clarice's also. Smellier."
"Oh good, you know portals. Yes. Portal go through Limbo, even briefly. Was there when I learned, so portal is anchor there. Hence smell, although human nose is weak, mostly cannot smell it. Your senses, they are very good. Would give you pat if I was on ground. Am understanding that is way cat and dog like praise."
"That is a thing you will have to earn," Namor clarified. They were still in combat, or at least he wasn't going to relinquish any ground merely because this cat had questions. One must never waver on account of cats.
"You are lucky I am not scared of heights," Illyana sniffed. They weren't terribly high and she could just let go, but hovering was fun. "Otherwise would scale you like tree, end up perched on head with terror. Sharon could jump up, see if you hold two people at same time."
"Sharon could do that," Sharon agreed. She thought about it.
"Sharon will."
Nine weeks on the streets had taken off some weight, but even a malnourished body bore some weight when its frame was nearly six feet long. A purple flash of bones, muscle, and fur launched into the air and straight for Namor's back while Illyana still occupied his front. The benefit of hands was that she didn't have to use claws to grip. Locking your arms around a target's center mass worked just fine.
"Wings still make no sense!" yowled the cat, waist-level.
"It is clear a demonstration is in order, then." Namor might thank the mutant gods that he had been blessed with increased durability and superstrength if he were prone to thanking abstract concepts, believing in gods greater than himself, or dwelling on his own abilities. Yet even with a pint-sized hellspawn in his grip and a cat scrambling at his nethers, there was only a brief dip in his hover and nothing playing across his features that might hint toward discomfort.
Instead, the group began to rise higher into the air.
"I do not fear heights," Sharon declared, undeterred. Her tail lashed. "I am good at landings."
They continued to rise. It might have been hard as the ground pulled away and the tops of buildings and trees started to become far more visible than usual, but the ragtag trio were drifting over the lake as well.
"I have portal, but Namor is fast and clever." Her fingers clutched tighter as they drifted towards the lake. "I am not dressed for dip in lake, Namor."
"You have every chance to yield, Your Highness," the flying man suggested playfully, but playful in the way an ancient emperor might bargain with men fighting to death for his amusement. His smile matched that tone. "Every chance."
As the group reached the peak of their climb, everything suddenly went downhill. Downwind? Down... lake? The sky was now the lake, and they were hurtling toward a sudden and inevitable wettening.
Anatomically impossible or not, Sharon discovered Namor's wings had one unambiguously effective quality: speed. Falling she had been prepared for. She'd fallen many times, and from many things. This, she quickly discovered, was an entirely different experience than plunging into a lake at high speed while hanging from the waist of a stranger like a complaining fanny pack. Sharon let go.
The ability to twist your own skin to get all four feet aligned with the ground had limited utility when there was no ground to land on. The end result was Sharon's first experience with both a large body of water and performing the feline equivalent of a belly flop.
Illyana, on the other hand, wasn't going to take a chance with missing her own portal. Or worse, ending up falling from some height into the dust of Limbo because she wasn't focused enough. Water, at this point, was probably inevitable. "Will not yield," she finally replied. Her voice was resolute, and she hooked her legs and arms more securely around Namor. "Will take you down with me, Majesty."
"Wrahhhh," Namor elegantly bellowed as the other two hit the water. If anyone was paying close attention, they might notice that his neck flexed to expose a set of gills that sighed with their own relieved breath of air. The water immediately moisturized his skin, whitened his teeth, and cleared Namor's cloudy disposition in an instant.
There were, of course, other things going on.
Illyana shrieked into Namor's ear just before they hit the water, clinging to him like a limpet as the water surrounded them. It was partially fear, since she couldn't swim at all, but that just meant she wasn't shy about digging fingers and nails into flesh as her hair floated out of the very loose ponytail she'd thrown it into.
Sharon's head broke the surface of the lake, her yowl of outrage already fully loaded.
"Wet!" Sharon shrieked, arms flailing as she speedran the process of discovering the mechanics of the dog paddle. "You have made me wet!" Her hindlegs got the memo and engaged, leaving her tail to thrash to and fro, arcing lakewater across the sky.
Namor emerged, bright and refreshed, flipping his hair back behind him in a glorious, cinematic spray of water. "Wet," he concurred.
"Wet," Illyana groused. "You okay, Sharon? That did not look like fun fall." Funny, and the only reason she hadn't ended up laughing was the speed at which she ended up in the water herself. Speaking of... she poked Namor in the abs. "Cannot swim, please take to shallow area," she requested politely. "Will get you back for this, one day."
There was a burbling wrrrowllll from Sharon, who had managed to synchronize all four legs and was paddling for the shore as they spoke. She was using her tail as a rudder in a way that somehow managed to convey deep personal offense. Soaked and stinking with lake-water, Sharon crawled to shore and glared at Namor as he came stroking up behind her with Illyana in tow.
"I am a cat," she said in the same accusing tones one might say 'you punched a baby'. Sharon started to shake, then did a double-take as she noticed the gill slits around Namor's neck.
"You have branchiae also?" she squawked. "Avian and aquatic adaptations? That is it. Jail! Jail for illogical fish man! Jail for one thousand years!"
Turns out it is remarkably easy to beat a cat to shore when one has wings. Illyana was deposited extremely gently on the shore, having been fished out of the water quickly upon her request. Those illogical, fluttering wings continued beating in soft, rhythmic mockery as the fish man landed nimbly near Sharon.
"We were in suspended animation in near five thousand of your years, Cat." Namor, completely nonplused by any of Sharon's accusations, ran a hand through his hair to shake off any water. "No human jail would be able to hold me."
Illyana just shrugged when the cat turned an inquiring stare to her. "Helped me kill many demons, would probably take over Limbo if I left him there," she added unhelpfully. "But will help you get clean after proper bath, brush out fur? I do own hair dryer with diffuse attachment."
Sharon glowered. It was a perfectly conscientious offer, but Sharon was soaking wet, and therefore wronged by all the world.
"No more baths," she said darkly. "I will dry in the sun as nature intended. Like the logically-shaped apex predator I am." She shook the water from her coat, immediately transitioning her look from 'pathetic animal' to 'novelty scrub brush.' With a final hiss at Namor, Sharon turned tail and disappeared into the underbrush.
"She is going to smell like lake stink and feel disgusting once dry." Illyana looked up at Namor with a frown. "I am stealing your shower and dry clothing. Lake water makes hair gross."
Namor nodded absently, but his eyes trailed the disappearing cat with a sharp, predator's glare. "Apex," he criticized, "She cannot even swim. Ridiculous."
