Piotr and Illyana, Tuesday afternoon

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Illyana goes to chat with Piotr after this post. They argue; he disowns her. No, really.


Illyana pushed her hair behind her ears, checking her reflection for any sign that she was upset. Her face was calm -- if slightly sunburnt and freckled from all the time she'd been spending outside recently; her face was clean, her clothes -- a pair of jeans and a black tank top -- were neat, and she didn't look at all like she hadn't slept well. It was satisfactory, although she couldn't keep her lips from thinning when she thought about him. Piotr was making this harder than she'd expected. It was all harder than she'd expected, but he was especially, the way he expected her to be something she didn't know how to be anymore. Not to mention the way he was palling around with Amanda Sefton, judging by his comment on the journals. What a bloody mess that was going to be.

She took one last look and headed out of her room, toward Piotr's. Without hesitation (she already had some very choice words prepared for him), she knocked.

Piotr had been waiting for too long for this conversation. He was so caught up in the moment of having her back from Limbo that he never considered her to be a changed person. After he replied to Illyana's last comment, he readied himself for anything. He popped a piece of gum in his mouth (offensive breath is never a good thing while arguing) and sat on his bed, then got up, paced a few sets and sat in his desk chair. He was just about to move back to the bed when he heard a knock on his door. He jumped up off his chair, chewing his gum madly, and opened the door. "Come on in, Illyana."

Illyana took exactly two measured steps inside, and raised her eyebrows at him. "You wanted to see me?" she asked, slipping coolly behind her mask. Her eyes were dark, but somehow cold, giving no indication of what she was thinking.

"Have a seat," he said sternly and offered a hand towards the bed.

Right, because she really wanted to put more height between them. "I'll stand, thanks," she said calmly, ignoring the rest of the room.

He took this as a sign that she want to wanting to stay. "Fine," he muttered. He stepped behind her, shut the door firmly and took a few steps back to have her in full view. "Tell me about Limbo," he insisted.

"No," she said.

He choked a little on his gum and coughed. "No? Since when did you start keeping secrets from me? Oh wait, it all seemed to start once you returned from that place. I want to know what happened Illyana and why you are so distant from me," Piotr demanded.

Idiot, she thought angrily, like you could handle it. "I'm distant, am I? Because I don't feel like sharing my feelings or whatever with you? Get real." She shook her head, flipped her hair over her shoulder fluidly, pausing for impact. "I'm not seven anymore, Piotr. You don't get to know everything there is to know about me, and that's completely final."

He was expecting that answer. "Oh and you expect it's easy for me to be automatically okay with a brand new sister. I don't even know this Illyana. You make it seem like you're the same the person and everyone else has changed, but you are the one that's different!" He was starting to get emotional.

As Piotr got more emotional, Illyana became less so. She raised an eyebrow while he went on, tilting her head to the side. "Never said everyone else had changed," she said, shrugging calmly, "and I'm certainly not a little girl, as I believe we have covered previously." Her voice became sharp; if she was going to say this and do this, she was going to do it right. "I don't expect you to be automatically okay with me, Piotr, and quite frankly I couldn't care less if you accept me or not. What I do expect is that you stop trying to make me the sister you had before, because she adapted to being different and a bloody good thing, too, or I wouldn't be standing here right now." Her voice rose slightly in volume at the end, authoritative and imperial.

He was finally getting more than simple sentences out of her so he continued. "I realize that you are not the same little sister I had before but that doesn't mean that I want to lose you. I still want a sister whether you've changed or not, but you won't let me even speak to you." He took a few breaths. "And what makes you think I wouldn't 'accept' you? There's nothing you could do that would turn me away."

If she had to go all the way... "Piotr, I know you live in something quite unlike the real world, but as far as I can tell we're talking right now." She very much resembled marble -- cool, resolute, hard, unforgiving. "As I said, I don't really care if you do or you don't, but if you think I'm going to sit down with you and talk about how I feel -- or my past -- you are completely mistaken."

He clenched his fist. "You know what? Fine. Be a distant, uncaring and unwilling sister. I'm tired of fighting a one sided battle to rebuild our shattered relationship, but as far as I can tell you're hopeless. You can be happy now that I won't be bothering you anymore." He turned away and waited for her to leave.

She hadn't thought it would be so easy. She took an imperceptible breath. "Fine, sulk," she snapped, with a toss of her head that sent her hair swinging across her shoulders. This was a part she could play to the T. She opened the door and took a step out into the hallway, then turned back, voice raised in a good imitation of fury. "Don't come crying to me again just because you have some twisted idea of what I should be for you. I have some advice about dealing with Limbo, Piotr: Get over it. Stop crying and wringing your hands like an old woman over it, because all that's doing is making you unhappy -- and, more importantly, annoying the hell out of me." And she left in a flash of blonde, her footsteps echoing down the hallway.

Piotr spun around and rushed to the doorway and stuck his head out. "Illyana Rasputin, you've betrayed our family and my trust in you. My little sister died in Limbo and I'll never see her again. You? I don't know who you are." He slammed the door after his comment, turned his back and slid down to the floor with his head in his hands.