A Haven to Call Home: An Offer
Oct. 25th, 2023 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsUpon hearing of Radha Dastoor's healing abilities, Haller seeks an introduction. He receives considerably more -- whether he wants it or not.
The most remarkable thing about the place was how vital it felt. Jim was unused to any plane of existence other than the astral type, so perhaps that was an unfair comparison, but Radha's world pulsed with life and beauty. He could detect the gentle, sourceless tones of a sitar mingling with birdsong and the hum of insects so seamlessly every element might have been an instrument in an orchestra. Lotus blossoms bloomed in the tranquil pond like drifts of clouds, and he couldn't resist kneeling down to touch a rose-tipped petal. The surface was soft and waxen, as real as any other flower to his senses, untouched by brown wilt or insect damage. Every bloom pristine and perfect, just like the rest of this world.
Or at least, that was the hope.
"Thank you again for agreeing to meet me," the telepath said, rising to face his host. "Quentin was right. This is a remarkable place."
Radha smiled gently at him. “This is my world,” she said, softly, “made as I wish. Do you not crave beauty? Harmony? Peace? Would you not also make a world that sings softly to you when you walk in it?”
Jim returned the smile, though his held a touch of wryness. "Some days. But there's beauty in imperfection, too. Without the bad, the good starts to lose definition."
Radha’s smile modulated, a hint of pain at its edges. “You think there is no imperfection here?” she asked, rhetorically. “I hope, in time, that Quentin and I can make a true sanctuary, a place where mutants can shelter as the world… dissolves. But that is the future. For now, those I bring to this place are those who are broken. Ill. Wounded. Here I can remake them, but they… grate upon perfection. I make my world perfect because I am asked, again and again, to take the broken and make them whole. It is both burden and benediction.”
The other man nodded. Quentin had warned him some of what Radha believed was a little out there, but the younger man seemed to respect her. Despite his misgivings he had determined to keep an open mind. Besides, the shelter Radha proposed wasn't all that different from the Institute: a place of safety for the persecuted. To him, the precise shape of her beliefs mattered less than her actions.
"As I understand it, the chronic conditions you treat eventually reassert themselves outside of your influence," Jim said. "You can't just treat people and then hand them off to a specialist. Committing to a lifetime of aftercare for the people you cure is . . . significant."
Radha looked away from Jim, into the middle distance. "It is all that I am given," she said softly. "The chance to show what can be." She turned back from whatever she had stared at, gave Jim a smile that was no more than a quirk of the lips. "I am a... flawed vessel. But perhaps you are right. That imperfection is needed." Her smile grew more genuine. "Haven't we both seen the error in the ways of those who think they are always right? Always righteous?"
"Unfortunately, yes. Inflexibility is a bad quality in the powerful." The X-Man gazed into the lotus pond. Mindfulness exercises had been a large part of his late teens and early twenties, and with that came an inescapable familiarity with Eastern religions. Consequently, he was not ignorant of the symbolism of the lotus: a thing of beauty that rose from the filth. The sort of world Radha strove for, perhaps.
"Sometimes I think the more power someone has, the more their views narrow," he remarked. "When you're so many more magnitudes beyond most people you lose the incentive to reason with your opponents. Why use a carrot when you have a stick?"
Radha shrugged. “A question for those with sticks,” she said. “Perhaps my power is too personal to have ever thought to use it that way. To fill my world with hate, with fear, to bend people to ill… would I want to hold a world so black inside my heart?”
"I'd like to think no one does. Rather, they're so far removed they don't even recognize the difference." Jim turned from the pool to look at her, an eyebrow raised. "What do you mean by 'personal'? Do you mean the healing?"
“Personal because it is my world. My power. My heart.” Radha’s glance at Haller was full of complex emotions. “To you it feels like a… place. But it is part of me. When I was young, when the universe first called me to be a haven when the Mahapralaya comes, I thought the easiest way to save many would be to find the world’s leaders, to bring them into my world, to remake their understanding. But when I tried they were so… consumed by their power, so hungry… I did not want them in my world. They… polluted it with their greed.” She looked down at the ground. “Perhaps it is selfish of me, but I did not want to bring them into my heart. So, weak as I am, I put out my call, welcome only those who welcomed my message. As for the healing,” Radha shrugged again, “my power lets me see those who are fractured, how they are broken. Why would I not make them whole?” She glanced again at Haller. “When you came into my world, I felt the fractures in your mind. Now you are whole. It costs me nothing to offer this carrot, as you call it, so why would I not?”
"I'm -- what?" What was she -- he understood the words, but they didn't make sense. Jim took an involuntary step back. Despite the perfect weather his body suddenly felt cold. "What are you talking about?"
“You stepped into my world and spoke of healing,” said Radha, calmly, almost coldly. “Is this not what you wanted? Your broken pieces made whole?”
"No!" Now that his attention had been called to it he realized he felt different. Suddenly it seemed as if he'd walked into a room as part of a group, only to turn around and discover himself alone.
How did she just reach into my mind and -- and I didn't even notice--
"I didn't give you permission to do this." He tried to keep his tone calm, but panic was starting to set in. He clenched his fists and said, through gritted teeth, "Let me out of here, Radha. Let me out, now."
As he spoke an unexpected shiver of power surged off him. The perfect grass beneath his feat rippled outwards like water.
Something in Radha’s expression changed then, became clinical, looking at Haller as if was a bug under glass, analysing that ripple of power being felt inside her world. “Then I misunderstood your words. You speak of healing so passionately, but when it is offered…” She flipped her hand dismissively and the sitar music and lotus flowers were gone and they were back in the commune. “You already know the limits of my gift. Your mind will fracture again soon, the way you are used to. You can be… comfortable, again.” There was an archness, as if she found the word distasteful, in Radha’s pronunciation of ‘comfortable’.
"'Offer' means I'd have had a chance to consent. You should have -- you don't understand what you just did." He backed away, fists clenched against the tug of his own power. He was scared. He was scared and suddenly there was no barrier between him and the power he shouldn't have been able to access. He could feel himself beginning to shove at the world around him, twigs and stones around him beginning to roll away, and realized his fear was pushing him into a psychokinetic storm. He remembered what these could do. If he didn't get away from here, and fast, things were going to break.
They were going to burn.
Urgently, Haller grabbed his phone from his pocket and started to text Clarice. "Excuse me," he said tightly, now unsure of who was even doing the speaking, "I need to go."
“Of course you do,” said Radha, and she gave him a tight smile, entirely without humour. “If you find you like what I have done and want me to do it again, then you know where to find me,” she added, and then turned and walked away, not waiting for Haller’s response.
He should have called after her, apologized for his tone, thanked her for the opportunity -- anything to leave the door for a future relationship open, at least a crack. Radha had power, and Madin was still here, somewhere in the commune. He shouldn't do anything to alienate her. But all he could think of was her eyes, cold as the vastness of a starry sky, that had looked into him and decided he was -- wanting.
He needed to get home. Now.
The most remarkable thing about the place was how vital it felt. Jim was unused to any plane of existence other than the astral type, so perhaps that was an unfair comparison, but Radha's world pulsed with life and beauty. He could detect the gentle, sourceless tones of a sitar mingling with birdsong and the hum of insects so seamlessly every element might have been an instrument in an orchestra. Lotus blossoms bloomed in the tranquil pond like drifts of clouds, and he couldn't resist kneeling down to touch a rose-tipped petal. The surface was soft and waxen, as real as any other flower to his senses, untouched by brown wilt or insect damage. Every bloom pristine and perfect, just like the rest of this world.
Or at least, that was the hope.
"Thank you again for agreeing to meet me," the telepath said, rising to face his host. "Quentin was right. This is a remarkable place."
Radha smiled gently at him. “This is my world,” she said, softly, “made as I wish. Do you not crave beauty? Harmony? Peace? Would you not also make a world that sings softly to you when you walk in it?”
Jim returned the smile, though his held a touch of wryness. "Some days. But there's beauty in imperfection, too. Without the bad, the good starts to lose definition."
Radha’s smile modulated, a hint of pain at its edges. “You think there is no imperfection here?” she asked, rhetorically. “I hope, in time, that Quentin and I can make a true sanctuary, a place where mutants can shelter as the world… dissolves. But that is the future. For now, those I bring to this place are those who are broken. Ill. Wounded. Here I can remake them, but they… grate upon perfection. I make my world perfect because I am asked, again and again, to take the broken and make them whole. It is both burden and benediction.”
The other man nodded. Quentin had warned him some of what Radha believed was a little out there, but the younger man seemed to respect her. Despite his misgivings he had determined to keep an open mind. Besides, the shelter Radha proposed wasn't all that different from the Institute: a place of safety for the persecuted. To him, the precise shape of her beliefs mattered less than her actions.
"As I understand it, the chronic conditions you treat eventually reassert themselves outside of your influence," Jim said. "You can't just treat people and then hand them off to a specialist. Committing to a lifetime of aftercare for the people you cure is . . . significant."
Radha looked away from Jim, into the middle distance. "It is all that I am given," she said softly. "The chance to show what can be." She turned back from whatever she had stared at, gave Jim a smile that was no more than a quirk of the lips. "I am a... flawed vessel. But perhaps you are right. That imperfection is needed." Her smile grew more genuine. "Haven't we both seen the error in the ways of those who think they are always right? Always righteous?"
"Unfortunately, yes. Inflexibility is a bad quality in the powerful." The X-Man gazed into the lotus pond. Mindfulness exercises had been a large part of his late teens and early twenties, and with that came an inescapable familiarity with Eastern religions. Consequently, he was not ignorant of the symbolism of the lotus: a thing of beauty that rose from the filth. The sort of world Radha strove for, perhaps.
"Sometimes I think the more power someone has, the more their views narrow," he remarked. "When you're so many more magnitudes beyond most people you lose the incentive to reason with your opponents. Why use a carrot when you have a stick?"
Radha shrugged. “A question for those with sticks,” she said. “Perhaps my power is too personal to have ever thought to use it that way. To fill my world with hate, with fear, to bend people to ill… would I want to hold a world so black inside my heart?”
"I'd like to think no one does. Rather, they're so far removed they don't even recognize the difference." Jim turned from the pool to look at her, an eyebrow raised. "What do you mean by 'personal'? Do you mean the healing?"
“Personal because it is my world. My power. My heart.” Radha’s glance at Haller was full of complex emotions. “To you it feels like a… place. But it is part of me. When I was young, when the universe first called me to be a haven when the Mahapralaya comes, I thought the easiest way to save many would be to find the world’s leaders, to bring them into my world, to remake their understanding. But when I tried they were so… consumed by their power, so hungry… I did not want them in my world. They… polluted it with their greed.” She looked down at the ground. “Perhaps it is selfish of me, but I did not want to bring them into my heart. So, weak as I am, I put out my call, welcome only those who welcomed my message. As for the healing,” Radha shrugged again, “my power lets me see those who are fractured, how they are broken. Why would I not make them whole?” She glanced again at Haller. “When you came into my world, I felt the fractures in your mind. Now you are whole. It costs me nothing to offer this carrot, as you call it, so why would I not?”
"I'm -- what?" What was she -- he understood the words, but they didn't make sense. Jim took an involuntary step back. Despite the perfect weather his body suddenly felt cold. "What are you talking about?"
“You stepped into my world and spoke of healing,” said Radha, calmly, almost coldly. “Is this not what you wanted? Your broken pieces made whole?”
"No!" Now that his attention had been called to it he realized he felt different. Suddenly it seemed as if he'd walked into a room as part of a group, only to turn around and discover himself alone.
How did she just reach into my mind and -- and I didn't even notice--
"I didn't give you permission to do this." He tried to keep his tone calm, but panic was starting to set in. He clenched his fists and said, through gritted teeth, "Let me out of here, Radha. Let me out, now."
As he spoke an unexpected shiver of power surged off him. The perfect grass beneath his feat rippled outwards like water.
Something in Radha’s expression changed then, became clinical, looking at Haller as if was a bug under glass, analysing that ripple of power being felt inside her world. “Then I misunderstood your words. You speak of healing so passionately, but when it is offered…” She flipped her hand dismissively and the sitar music and lotus flowers were gone and they were back in the commune. “You already know the limits of my gift. Your mind will fracture again soon, the way you are used to. You can be… comfortable, again.” There was an archness, as if she found the word distasteful, in Radha’s pronunciation of ‘comfortable’.
"'Offer' means I'd have had a chance to consent. You should have -- you don't understand what you just did." He backed away, fists clenched against the tug of his own power. He was scared. He was scared and suddenly there was no barrier between him and the power he shouldn't have been able to access. He could feel himself beginning to shove at the world around him, twigs and stones around him beginning to roll away, and realized his fear was pushing him into a psychokinetic storm. He remembered what these could do. If he didn't get away from here, and fast, things were going to break.
They were going to burn.
Urgently, Haller grabbed his phone from his pocket and started to text Clarice. "Excuse me," he said tightly, now unsure of who was even doing the speaking, "I need to go."
“Of course you do,” said Radha, and she gave him a tight smile, entirely without humour. “If you find you like what I have done and want me to do it again, then you know where to find me,” she added, and then turned and walked away, not waiting for Haller’s response.
He should have called after her, apologized for his tone, thanked her for the opportunity -- anything to leave the door for a future relationship open, at least a crack. Radha had power, and Madin was still here, somewhere in the commune. He shouldn't do anything to alienate her. But all he could think of was her eyes, cold as the vastness of a starry sky, that had looked into him and decided he was -- wanting.
He needed to get home. Now.
