xp_logs | Friday afternoon, Marie-Ange meets Dr. Strange

Marie-Ange meets Dr. Strange to see if he can help with some of the dream interpretation.

School had only been back for a few weeks, but already Columbia had settled into the regular routines of academic pursuits and college social life. Stephen Strange sat outside one of the small coffee shops that seemed to have popped up all over campus like mushrooms. It was a sunny day, not too cold, and he was enjoying the sun and a coffee whilst he waited for Marie-Ange. Not far away was his building, and the carpark where Nathan had been attacked - if he tilted his head, he could see the makeshift shrine that had developed in the weeks since. But he didn't tilt his head, sipping his coffee and instead watching the students stream past, absorbed, busy, alive... He was so caught up in their auras that he entirely failed to notice Marie-Ange's arrival.

Marie-Ange stood just to the side of the table, an overloaded bag over her shoulder. "I am sorry if I am late. I had some trouble parking." She said, just slightly embarrassed. "And some trouble with my directions.."

"No, you're on time. Please, sit." Strange rose politely, gesturing to an empty chair at the table. "The campus is pretty large," he went on, waiting until Marie-Ange had taken a seat before resuming his. "And you wouldn't be the first to get confused. Can I get you something to drink? A coffee perhaps?"

Marie-Ange nodded. "Thank you." Once she had her drink, she fidgeted, a little nervously. "Amanda said.. that you might be able to help?" The feeling that she was utterly and totally lost was not helping her nerves. Magic, even as a concept was still unbelievable.

"Perhaps. I’ll be honest with you - mutation is not my area. Most magic users only look at it as an abstract concept, a form of cheating, as it were." Strange looked a little apologetic. "Fortunately that's not all of us. However, we don't tend to have a lot to do with mutants. Still, clairvoyance - pre-cognition - isn't entirely unknown in the magical community, and there's a wealth of research available." A certain enthusiastic gleam entered his eyes, the look of a man who has a shiny new project into which to throw himself. "I took the liberty of bringing one or two texts with me, basic primers, as it were. Dream interpretation and the like. The shamans of India especially place great weight on dreams as an instrument of prophecy..." He paused, looked at Marie-Ange carefully. "I'm sorry, I do tend to go on, as Amanda says. I’m not overwhelming you, am I?"

Marie-Ange shook her head. The look on Dr. Strange's face was not all that dissimilar to the one Doug got when presented with a new computer part, or a language he had not learned yet. "Not at all. I am used to far worse, to speak honestly. Doug forgets often that I do not understand his computer languages." She said, an undoubtedly affectionate smile on her face. "Anything on how to interpret what I see would help. Sometimes the dreams are very, very strange. My friend Jamie being attacked by meatloaf, for instance."

"Meatloaf?" Strange raised his eyebrow. "Might I ask... has something of the kind come to pass?"

"Jamie? No, I do not think he has ever fought with meatloaf. He has fought goblins, and I suppose he ... " Marie-Ange paused, not sure how to continue. "Did Amanda explain Jamie's evil twin?" she asked, with a wince. It sounded ridiculous, on top of being definitely not her favorite topic of discussion.

"She did - she was concerned about using her magic to... destroy those - clones, I suppose you could call them. But yes, she explained about the whole thing." Strange watched her intently, aware of her discomfort. "You think there's a connection between this meatloaf dream and the incident?"

"I am not sure. I seem to have a lot of odd dreams where Jamie is concerned. Meatloaf, mayonnaise jars." Marie-Ange wrinkled her nose. "And Doug tried to help me find books on dream interpretation, but they all talk about ... more natural symbols, I suppose. Animals or water or flying, and so many of my dreams do not fit into neat categories."

"That would be because you aren't a shaman," Strange said dryly. "You are a teenage girl, and your experience colours your dream imagery accordingly. Lateral thinking is possibly what is needed here, rather than trying to mash what you see into an appropriate set of symbols." He thought for a long moment, considering what Marie-Ange had told him. "Forgive me for focusing on a difficult topic, but... These clones of your friend's, they dissolved when they lost consciousness, did they not? Into something that could be considered not unlike meatloaf?" He hastened to add. "Not something to dwell on, I know, but in the interests of helping you with your problem, it's something we need to consider."

Marie-Ange took several deep breaths before answering, almost as if she was trying to prevent an upset stomach. Which is exactly what she was doing. "They fell apart, as if they were rotting away. I suppose.. Jamie has not ever really explained what happened, and I did not want to press the issue. Skippy is not.. .at all my favorite topic." Even without the part where she had killed one, Jamie's evil dupe still gave Marie-Ange nightmares sometimes.

"Then we won't continue it. Believe me, I have no desire to cause you upset." Strange looked genuinely concerned. "How you tell me one of your other dreams, and we'll see if we can't find some meaning to it?"

Marie-Ange shut her eyes, trying to think for a moment. "I have a few recurring dreams, and dreams that return seem to be more likely to happen. There is one, I still do not understand, with Mr. Summers, and a woman made of fire. Sometimes she seems much older than he is, and sometimes much younger. I have never quite made sense of that one, and it has come back often."

"A firebird?" Strange blinked. The woman known as Askani, the one inhabiting Nathan's mind... she had a firebird construct. "Tell me, Marie-Ange, have you met many of the Askani? Especially their leader?" he asked. He was still trying to figure out the connection with Scott Summers, although there had been that incident the previous year... The death of one of his students had been at the top of Professor Xavier's aura when Strange had seen him back in May.

"Sometimes, it is a firebird, sometimes it seems more just a lot of fire. I have a lot of nightmares about fire, and I am not certain it is not significant." Marie-Ange said, then paused to take a long drink of her coffee. "I have not yet met any of the Askani. Nathan and I had discussed it and then plans went awry, because of the unwelcome vacation to Asgard, and until recently, I was not having any dreams I remembered at all. It took time for them to come back, and I was hoping they had gone away."

"Askani - I believe that's her name - has a firebird as an avatar," Strange told her. "Although there is no connection that I can think of between her and Mr. Summers." Steepling his fingers in front of him, he considered the girl and went on. "Did something happen in Asgard that affected your power? And I take it you're beginning to have the dreams again?"

If anyone else had asked that question, Marie-Ange would have preceded the explanation with "I know this sounds odd.". But for Amanda's magic teacher, she thought maybe he would not be all that shocked. "I think, and I .. am not certain, that Odin did something to it. Or that I did something because of Sif's training. I am not sure, but it started in Asgard. If I .. I suppose, push is the word, I can get a hint of the immediate future. Usually whether or not something is a good or bad idea."

She was right - Strange took the news that the All-Father of Norse mythology had done something to her precognition with nothing more than a "Hmm." And then another question: "How about longer term? Has that been affected?"

"I am uncertain. The .. furthest ahead I have ever seen is still almost a year away, by my guess, and I do not know if anything else I have seen.." Marie-Ange frowned.. "The problem is that I cannot tell what I see, so I do not know how far away is it always supposed to be.."

"It seems to me Odin wanted your powers... restricted in Asgard. Precognition is his particular arena, and the Norse gods were... are notoriously human in their reactions. Now you are free of Asgard and his influence, your powers seem to be returning to what they were." Strange spoke slowly, obviously thinking through the hypothesis as he talked. "He could not take it all, so he restricted you to immediacies."

Marie-Ange chuckled dryly, and not at all warmly. "I would not be surprised if he did it just to make it difficult. Both he and Sif did things it seemed, just to make me unhappy. The.. immediate .. aspect still works, when I want to use it. I just continue to have the dreams, mostly nightmares now." She frowned and pulled a notebook, that looked to have been bent in half at one point, from her bookbag and set it on the table. "I write down as many as possible, but most of them make no sense until after the fact."

"Some of it was to make you unhappy, but in the long run, it had tactical value, I think, even if the meaning of their actions, like your dreams, is not immediately apparent." He indicated the notebook. "May I?" When she nodded, he reached over and picked it up, leafing through it carefully. "Would you mind if I got a copy of this? For research purposes - if you could indicate to me which dreams came to pass, and how, I might be able to determine a pattern to your ways of thinking."

Marie-Ange nodded. "I give copies to Dr. MacTaggart.. well, most of the time. I forget sometimes, and I have let Doug and Nathan read it. It is.. most is not in English, because I am barely fluent in French at three in the morning, most nights. Doug has been translating for me, but I think that may be some of the problem... "

"~If I can read demonic scripts, I think I can manage yours,"~ he told her in French, with a smile. Switching back to English, he went on. "Most magic users have to be linguists as well. Many of my colleagues focus on dead languages, but I see no reason to neglect the more recent ones."

Marie-Ange returned the smile, some of her nervousness put aside for the moment. "And some linguists get to be magic users sometimes. Doug was grinning for a week without stopping, did Amanda tell you?"

"She did. She was most amused by it all." Strange chuckled a little. "The magic's not all study and discipline - sometimes I think I would do well to remember that. And while we're on the subject of Mr. Ramsey, and Amanda... I must thank you for that email, the one you sent about your concerns for her addiction. It was the act of a good friend."

Marie-Ange ducked her head slightly, blushing. "Merci.. I .. was concerned, and I am glad she is doing better."

"That she is." Strange finished his coffee, and gave her an inquiring look. "I have a class in about fifteen minutes - would you like to come back to my office with me? I can copy this notebook of yours, and we can discuss more along the lines of seers of the magical type, if you like..."

Marie-Ange nodded and drained the last of her own cup of coffee. "It would probably be easier than me trying to send a copy to you with Amanda.. " She grinned. "That runs the risk of Frank eating it, or it mysteriously disappearing... " Or Marie-Ange herself just plain forgetting, which was just as likely.

"Yes, she's still working on that teleportation spell, it seems to be giving her trouble..." Strange paid for their drinks and lead the way back to his office, cheerfully rambling about various subjects as he did.