Jono Starsmore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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xp_logs2024-01-23 12:57 pm
xp_chambers) wrote in xp_logs2024-01-23 12:57 pm
Entry tags:
Jono and Namor | Folklore
Namor and Jono talk about folklore.
Namor sat on the roof of the chapel. It was his right to perch, afterall, since the sky was his. The view of the mansion and lake on this winter day were a thing that few could properly appreciate, and no one as much as those who could fly. Those pamphlets Xavier's bureaucrats handed to new recruits likes to boast about the views from the overstuffed foyer, but they couldn't know.
He was also blissfully unaware of the incongruity of not needing a shirt or shoes in the chilly weather. So he sat perched, contemplative, like some sort of marble statue. A gargoyle. One, at least, with youtube videos to watch.
Jono walked on the path below the chapel and shuddered, not just from the chill air but from the sense that he was being watched....and possibly condescended to? It felt a lot like that one time Gayle had taken him to London and they'd been near Buckingham Palace. He spun around, looking for the eyes he felt watching him and furrowed his brow when he came up empty. People can fly here, he reminded himself, and glanced up, eyebrows raising at the sight of the man perched on top of the roof.
Well...he'd seen weirder things in Birmingham, but those were usually freshers drunk off their ass, not some stoic man with wings in the wrong place.
The stoic man locked steel cold eyes with Jono's own piqued expression, and the idle condescension morphed to judgment. Player or pawn, it asked, although Namor immediately settled on his answer. Pawn. Pawns were useful, though, and, sometimes, expected. The flyer depreched. His tiny wings fluttered rapidly, like a hummingbird, and his movement through the air made absolutely no sense for someone considering the psychics of it. It was only a breath before the flyer on the roof became the figure right there.
"You are late," Namor began.
Jono blinked rapidly in surprise and stared at the other man for a moment. His ability to talk shit to someone’s face had been hindered since the accident. Things just didn’t have the same punch when he had to write it out and let them decipher his handwriting or when they had to wait for him to remember how the light writer works. He mentally sighed and pulled the light writer from his jacket, typing a response.
“The fuck I am. I don’t even know you.”
The other man didn't blink. A series of slits along his throat and shoulders did briefly flare, but then they faded like they were never there. "Impudence," the Atlantean noted with crisp words, "Not what We expected, but a useful tool. While your education has clearly been lacking, and that is a fault between yourself and this military establishment."
He pivoted and began moving with purpose toward the chapel doors, although the King did not manage to break eye contact with Jono. He was expected to follow.
Jono planted his feet firm and glared at the other man. It took a moment for him to type everything he wanted to say into the light writer, but he was pretty pleased with it even if the voice didn’t sound like him. “No. I can’t be late for something I never fucking agreed to or was notified of. And I’m certainly not following some fucking gawby that thinks the sun shines out his arse. I dunno what you want but the answer’s no.”
Namor stiffened, and turned to fully face Jono. "We," and it was a proper capital with that word again, "see. It is important that you, whoever you are, understand that the fact I am allowing you to address the throne of Atlantis in such a manner is a courtesy." He crossed his arms. "My magnanimity will only last so long. Please, continue."
The royal we? As if I couldn’t hate the man more already. Jono thought as he typed his response. “Oh my apologizes your highness I’ll be sure to rectify my attitude right after I give you the respect you’ve so clearly earned just from being born.”
As the machine read off the text, Jono did his best mocking curtesy, rolled his eyes, and flipped the Royal before him the bird for good measure on his way back to standing upright.
About a minute too late he fully realized everything the other man had said and quickly typed. “Wait Atlantis is real? Is it where Plato said?”
Namor didn't even bat an eyelid at the outburst. If anything, he curled his lip in an almost predatory gesture. He advanced slowly on Jono. "No, not impudence. Foolishness. This is why I so rarely play fetch for Alani, you see. You lung breathers all look alike. Short, angry lives without enough experience to cultivate sense."
He actually scoffed, circling the overly clothed grunge rocker. "Plato was a fool, too. He got the shape of it right, but not everything should be flattened into a morality tale for children."
Jono rolled his eyes. "I. Don't. Breathe. And I don't know any Alani. I only asked if Plato got the location right and nothing beyond that. Only idiots try to flatten culture and history into moralistic ideals, you wouldn't tell and Irishman that the Táin bó Cuailnge is a moralistic fantasy."
Jono visibly cringed at the Irish pronunciation from his lightwriter but shook his head and made sure to look Namor in the eye before typing his next words carefully. "You don't scare me. You can't kill what's already dead. I'll never be afraid of someone who thinks the station of their birth determines their importance in this world because I know that as depressed as I am that it makes your life even sadder."
Plenty of men of higher station had tried to make Jono feel small before. Gayle's father. The students at the university he couldn't afford to attend. The professors who came into the store he worked at. He was used to being condescended to- it had stopped inspiring fear within him long ago, now all it did was fuel his spite.
"Novel," Namor mused, unphased, "You don't back down, even after openly insulting the station and people that were ripped from me. You stew in your anger over class." His eyes darkened. "The Táin? You may speak of the Sidhe, but my people ruled the seas back when they were constructing their portal tombs and circles in their bogs."
He turned away. "If you are truly dead, then I will leave you and your childish anger to fester and rot. Be gone."
"I don't insult your people, just your foolish idea that you're somehow better than others because you happened to get lucky with the status of your birth. Even chosen kings have been deposed for believing themselves inherently superior to others. There's nothing to be gained from believing oneself beyond reproach except the inevitable fall." Jono glared at him. "The funny thing about us 'lung breathers' is that we're quite well known for our indomitable spirit. We're not known to back down."
"We have heard that: You. Don't. Breathe." A twist of his hand, shooing. "You are not who we hoped. Be gone. Since I am not without charity: sharpen your anger into a finer blade if you wish to truly challenge the Throne of Bensaylum."
"You approached me." Jono typed. "I'm not stopping my walk just because you decided to be a miserable bastard and block my path for no goddamn reason."
This received a single, raised eyebrow and nothing more.
Namor strode purposefully into the chapel, off to complete whatever task he had expected a volunteer for alone.
Namor sat on the roof of the chapel. It was his right to perch, afterall, since the sky was his. The view of the mansion and lake on this winter day were a thing that few could properly appreciate, and no one as much as those who could fly. Those pamphlets Xavier's bureaucrats handed to new recruits likes to boast about the views from the overstuffed foyer, but they couldn't know.
He was also blissfully unaware of the incongruity of not needing a shirt or shoes in the chilly weather. So he sat perched, contemplative, like some sort of marble statue. A gargoyle. One, at least, with youtube videos to watch.
Jono walked on the path below the chapel and shuddered, not just from the chill air but from the sense that he was being watched....and possibly condescended to? It felt a lot like that one time Gayle had taken him to London and they'd been near Buckingham Palace. He spun around, looking for the eyes he felt watching him and furrowed his brow when he came up empty. People can fly here, he reminded himself, and glanced up, eyebrows raising at the sight of the man perched on top of the roof.
Well...he'd seen weirder things in Birmingham, but those were usually freshers drunk off their ass, not some stoic man with wings in the wrong place.
The stoic man locked steel cold eyes with Jono's own piqued expression, and the idle condescension morphed to judgment. Player or pawn, it asked, although Namor immediately settled on his answer. Pawn. Pawns were useful, though, and, sometimes, expected. The flyer depreched. His tiny wings fluttered rapidly, like a hummingbird, and his movement through the air made absolutely no sense for someone considering the psychics of it. It was only a breath before the flyer on the roof became the figure right there.
"You are late," Namor began.
Jono blinked rapidly in surprise and stared at the other man for a moment. His ability to talk shit to someone’s face had been hindered since the accident. Things just didn’t have the same punch when he had to write it out and let them decipher his handwriting or when they had to wait for him to remember how the light writer works. He mentally sighed and pulled the light writer from his jacket, typing a response.
“The fuck I am. I don’t even know you.”
The other man didn't blink. A series of slits along his throat and shoulders did briefly flare, but then they faded like they were never there. "Impudence," the Atlantean noted with crisp words, "Not what We expected, but a useful tool. While your education has clearly been lacking, and that is a fault between yourself and this military establishment."
He pivoted and began moving with purpose toward the chapel doors, although the King did not manage to break eye contact with Jono. He was expected to follow.
Jono planted his feet firm and glared at the other man. It took a moment for him to type everything he wanted to say into the light writer, but he was pretty pleased with it even if the voice didn’t sound like him. “No. I can’t be late for something I never fucking agreed to or was notified of. And I’m certainly not following some fucking gawby that thinks the sun shines out his arse. I dunno what you want but the answer’s no.”
Namor stiffened, and turned to fully face Jono. "We," and it was a proper capital with that word again, "see. It is important that you, whoever you are, understand that the fact I am allowing you to address the throne of Atlantis in such a manner is a courtesy." He crossed his arms. "My magnanimity will only last so long. Please, continue."
The royal we? As if I couldn’t hate the man more already. Jono thought as he typed his response. “Oh my apologizes your highness I’ll be sure to rectify my attitude right after I give you the respect you’ve so clearly earned just from being born.”
As the machine read off the text, Jono did his best mocking curtesy, rolled his eyes, and flipped the Royal before him the bird for good measure on his way back to standing upright.
About a minute too late he fully realized everything the other man had said and quickly typed. “Wait Atlantis is real? Is it where Plato said?”
Namor didn't even bat an eyelid at the outburst. If anything, he curled his lip in an almost predatory gesture. He advanced slowly on Jono. "No, not impudence. Foolishness. This is why I so rarely play fetch for Alani, you see. You lung breathers all look alike. Short, angry lives without enough experience to cultivate sense."
He actually scoffed, circling the overly clothed grunge rocker. "Plato was a fool, too. He got the shape of it right, but not everything should be flattened into a morality tale for children."
Jono rolled his eyes. "I. Don't. Breathe. And I don't know any Alani. I only asked if Plato got the location right and nothing beyond that. Only idiots try to flatten culture and history into moralistic ideals, you wouldn't tell and Irishman that the Táin bó Cuailnge is a moralistic fantasy."
Jono visibly cringed at the Irish pronunciation from his lightwriter but shook his head and made sure to look Namor in the eye before typing his next words carefully. "You don't scare me. You can't kill what's already dead. I'll never be afraid of someone who thinks the station of their birth determines their importance in this world because I know that as depressed as I am that it makes your life even sadder."
Plenty of men of higher station had tried to make Jono feel small before. Gayle's father. The students at the university he couldn't afford to attend. The professors who came into the store he worked at. He was used to being condescended to- it had stopped inspiring fear within him long ago, now all it did was fuel his spite.
"Novel," Namor mused, unphased, "You don't back down, even after openly insulting the station and people that were ripped from me. You stew in your anger over class." His eyes darkened. "The Táin? You may speak of the Sidhe, but my people ruled the seas back when they were constructing their portal tombs and circles in their bogs."
He turned away. "If you are truly dead, then I will leave you and your childish anger to fester and rot. Be gone."
"I don't insult your people, just your foolish idea that you're somehow better than others because you happened to get lucky with the status of your birth. Even chosen kings have been deposed for believing themselves inherently superior to others. There's nothing to be gained from believing oneself beyond reproach except the inevitable fall." Jono glared at him. "The funny thing about us 'lung breathers' is that we're quite well known for our indomitable spirit. We're not known to back down."
"We have heard that: You. Don't. Breathe." A twist of his hand, shooing. "You are not who we hoped. Be gone. Since I am not without charity: sharpen your anger into a finer blade if you wish to truly challenge the Throne of Bensaylum."
"You approached me." Jono typed. "I'm not stopping my walk just because you decided to be a miserable bastard and block my path for no goddamn reason."
This received a single, raised eyebrow and nothing more.
Namor strode purposefully into the chapel, off to complete whatever task he had expected a volunteer for alone.
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"Lung breather" is a perfectly amusing insult that is completely wasted by being deployed against the only person in the mansion for whom it does not apply. Although now it has me wondering if Jono can swim.