xp_logs | Nathan and Haroun, Thursday morning

Haroun finds Nathan practicing water-sculpture with his TK out by the lake. They talk about faith, semantics, what opinion their honored dead would have on their lives. Then they have a waterfight. Then they both wind up in the lake. Somewhere along the way, they start plotting the use of telekinetic water balloons to more fully appreciate Moira and Alison's natural assets. Did we mention they're both lunatics?

Water was an interesting medium to work in, Nathan thought, sitting at the end of the dock and idly reshaping lake water into various shapes. Heavy, and you had to apply constant pressure over its whole surface to keep it in the form you wanted. Transient too. But that made it more fun, he told himself, and whimsically started to work on a ten-foot high version of Notre Dame cathedral.

A familiar roar up in the sky caught at his attention. Holding the half-finished cathedral steady, he looked up, waving cheerfully at Haroun.

Haroun waved back and landed nearby. Once safely on the ground, he walked over to Nathan's side. "Interesting." he said, examining the water-sculpture. "That's very pretty. What gave you the idea to shape water like that?"

Nathan shrugged, smiling, and went back to adding more details. "It's something on the easily visible level, so I'm not pushing my circuit-breaker. Plus it's heavy, so it's good exercise."

"I suppose I can't argue with that. I have little artistic skill, so I tend to be somewhat in awe of those who do." he admitted. "And this - this is beautiful. Do you think you could do the Hagia Sophia at some point?"

Nathan brightened. "Can I," he teased with a delighted grin. He extended a hand, shifting the cathedral to one side even as he held it in place, and started to create Hagia Sophia beside it. "I remember the first time I was there," he murmured, focusing on the image in his mind's eye. "Stood beneath the dome and nearly fell over from the impact of it all. I felt like the ambassadors from Rus' in the eleventh century, standing there wondering if they were still in the world they knew."

Haroun nodded. "I've been there as well. It is a holy place, still." he said with a silly smile. "The architect was a genius. Pure and simple. Only places that I have seen that were more inspirational I visited while on the hajj."

"To think, that dome's stood since the sixth century in an area that prone to earthquakes. Almost enough to make me, the notorious atheist, believe that there is a God and He approves," Nathan said lightly.

"Of course He does." Haroun agreed, still with the silly smile. "Even infidel dogs like yourself can feel His presence there." he added, looking over at Nathan. "No offense intended, of course."

"Would you really call me an infidel?" Nathan asked after a moment, adding some of the last ornamentation to the exterior of his Hagia Sophia. Finishing, he moved it aside and started, on a whim, on Yorkminster cathedral. "Doesn't that imply I have some religious belief, even if it's not yours?"

Haroun grinned again. "Depending on who you talk to, you're a walking cult in and of yourself. But you may have a point there. Filthy nonbeliever a more fitting label for you, then?" he asked.

"Heathen, maybe?" Nathan suggested a bit whimsically, not entirely sure why he was joking about this. Maybe he really was mellowing. "I do bathe regularly, after all."

Haroun snickered. "It's one of the things you do best. That and sprain your brain." he said with a joking grin. "Heathen it is, though." he agreed. "Seriously, though - these are quite beautiful. A shame they're so ephemeral. A lesson on the nature of beauty, perhaps?"

"That's what I was thinking," Nathan said, setting Yorkminister beside Notre Dame. Holding both of them and Hagia Sophia at once, he was beginning to feel the strain. Just a little, though. "But I can recreate them again anytime I want. The memory's still there."

"And that's the lesson." Haroun said with a satisfied nod. "All true beauty comes from within."

Nathan grinned and started on a fourth shape. Not a building this time, though; a vaguely human form took on more and more definition, until there was a Moira-made-of-water standing just beyond the end of the dock, smiling at them.

"I rest my case." Haroun said, looking at the faux-Scot. "The two of you will do well together, I think." he mused. "A long happy life, barring it being tragically cut short by disease or violence."

"I've thought about that, you know," Nathan said quietly. The Moira-shape smiled and turned, her hair moving as if in the wind, and walked off to inspect the churches. "What happens if a mission goes wrong, or the virus gets ahead of me for whatever reason... she's given me chapter and verse on how she feels about the subject, though."

"I imagine she has." said Haorun with a mock-shudder. "I'll bet that that was not a fun conversation. For men such as us, with our lives spent bathed in violence in service to a great man who wishes to do great things, it can be difficult to think about the things other men think about - a wife, a family, all the things we're always told the future holds for us. We could be called upon to die at any moment."

"When I got here... well, when I got here, I was half-convinced I wasn't going to live to see the summer. She didn't let me give up." Nathan smiled. "Funny how things started to open up again, after that."

"I know that feeling. When I burned, I was more than half-convinced that I would never walk again, let alone fly. I think I begged for death, come to think of it. Hardly my finest hour. But Dame Frost and my classmates pulled me through the long years of surgeries and learning to walk all over again." he said as he saw and felt the memories replay in his mind.

His classmates. Nathan looked sideways at him for a long, thoughtful moment. "Would they be proud of you now, do you think?" he asked quietly. "Seeing just how much you have done with your life, despite what happened to you...?"

Haroun shruged. "I think they were, before Pierce murdered them in cold blood." he said, eyes wincing closed as the memories threatened to overwhelm him. He turned away for a second to clear his eyes. "Now? I can only hope that they look down upon me from Paradise and smile."

"I ask myself the same question about my team sometimes," Nathan said after a moment, shifting the subject slightly to get Haroun the chance to recover his composure. "What would they think, to see me--free, like this, making my own decisions about my life." He gave a pained smile. "But then I start wondering about how they'd feel about all the Mistra operatives I killed to stay free all these years. I usually try to think about something else, then."

Haroun took a few moments to get himself under control. "Sorry about that." he said by way of an apology for his control breaking. "I imagine that, given the choice, that they would prefer that you live free and remember them, rather than live as a slave and let their memories die."

"Don't apologize." Nathan shrugged and released the water-sculptures, laughing as the splash turned out to be more significant than he'd thought. "Whoops," he said with a grin, glancing sideways at an equally soggy Haroun. "Okay, maybe I should apologize..."

Haroun blinked, and then laughed. "Guess I deserved that." he said, laughing even harder at Nathan's sheepish expression.

"Gah--why do I not think these things through?" Nathan asked, chuckling helplessly. "Hundreds of pounds of water, at least, and I let it go all at once..."

"Well, you have soggy clothes to serve you as a reminder to think before you drop multiple hundreds of pounds of water." he pointed out helpfully. "Do you think Moira will kill you for coming in sopping wet, or do your commando skills extend so far as to breaking into your own suite to rescue dry things, laundering your wet things, then cleaning up so that it appears that nothing happened?"

"Possibly. But I could also just sit out here and keep playing until my clothes dry all on their own," Nathan pointed out, grinning. "Less risk. Except maybe of catching a cold, but that might actually be preferable..."

"If you come in sniffling Moira will kill you." Haroun pointed out. "If you come in sopping wet, Moira will kill you. I think the best solution is to stay out - or to lure her out and get her all soaked, so she has no grounds to complain about being sopping wet. And while we're luring people out here to get them soaking wet, think you could get Alison out here as well?"

Nathan gave the younger man an amused look. "You are so very, very transparent. Once not enough for you?"

Haroun grinned and shrugged. "Permit your juniors their sport. And no, once was very clearly not enough. Second time wasn't enough, either. I need the trifecta."

"I have dropped Moira in large, cold bodies of water..." Nathan paused, trying to remember. "Well, three times, technically. The fourth, I pulled her in after me."

"You see there? I'm falling behind! Can't have that." he said with a smirk. "Mmm, transparency." he said in a half-decent imitation of about half the male student body of the Mansion.

"There's always the telekinetic water balloon option," Nathan suggested mischievously, creating half a dozen of them and levitating them into the air. "I could do it, get both of them and take the consequences myself, but we'd both get to enjoy the view. After the way they were teasing me in Angie's journal, I'm seriously tempted."

Haroun hrmmed. "That is tempting indeed, but I don't know what her schedule is like today. I don't want to bombard her if she's got something important going on."

Nathan ahhhed wisely, then lobbed one of the 'balloons' at Haroun. "You were already all wet," he said innocently as it connected and the younger man sputtered.

Haroun laughed at Nathan. "So I was!" he said around deep laughs. Then, without warning, he shoved Nathan with the intent of pushing him into the lake. "And so are you!"

He probably could have managed not to wind up in the drink, but, like Haroun, he was already soaked. And what fun was it if he got to have all the fun? He hit the water a little harder than he'd expected, and it took him a moment to resurface. "Oh, we're going to play rough, are we?" he asked gleefully, treading water and grinning up at Haroun. Before Haroun could answer, he snatched at him telekinetically and dropped him in the lake, too.

Haroun barely had time to whoop as he was telekinetically tossed into the lake. Laughing, he surfaced a moment later. "It's a good thing the 'ware is watertight." he laughed. "Now I am sure of it - Moira is going to kill us both."

"Either that or Cain is going to come out of the boathouse, shake his head, and dismiss us both as lunatics." Nathan couldn't stop laughing suddenly. "Which, you know, is the general consensus around the mansion anyway..."

"And here I thought we were both already mad!" he choked out around laughs. Haroun, still not quite acclimated to the cold of upstate New York over the warmth of his native Morocco, shivered despite himself. "I need to go warm up." he said, then swam over to the dock's edge to pull himself out of the water.

"Wimp," Nathan accused gleefully, still treading water. "Of course, I was born in Alaska, so I have a natural immunity to cold."

"I'm African!" Haroun protested. "But at least I have a way to get warm quickly." And as he spoke, the jetpack popped out of his back and he rose about six inches into the air with a dull roar, his power causing the water on his body and in his clothes to quickly evaporate.

"True enough," Nathan said with some appreciation, not making any move to head towards the dock again. "If it wasn't for this damned circuit-breaker, I could probably get the water out of my clothes telekinetically."

"Instead of grabbing the water, have you thought about manipulating your clothes to get the water out?" asked Haroun as his feet settled back to the deck.

Nathan gave him a perplexed frown. "Manipulate how?" he asked, then headed back to the dock. The water really was kind of cold.

Haroun shrugged. "Make it more porous, so that the water just falls right through it? I don't know, my specialty is aero, not materials!" he said.

Nathan hauled himself out, gladly taking the helping hand Haroun offered. "I'm not sure," he said thoughtfully as Haroun pulled him to his feet. "Might wind up with disintegrating clothes that way." He grinned. "And no one really needs to see that."

"Least of all me!" said Haroun. "Gaaah, now I am going to have nightmares for weeks!" he teased. "Save your nudity for Moira, we don't need to see it!"

"My exhibitionist streak doesn't stretch that far. Not to worry." Nathan grimaced at the state of his clothes. "I probably ought to go face the music, or I really will wind up sniffling," he said lightly. "Maybe I'll just float up to my bedroom window."

"Want a lift?" Haroun asked with an evil glint in his eye.

Nathan, though still smiling, gave him a suspicious look. "Sure," he said, wondering just what Haroun had in mind.

Haroun grinned. "All rightie then. Which one's yours?" he said, nodding at the rather large expanse of windows on this side of the Mansion.

"Sixth from the left," Nathan said. "I'm guessing I need a shield for this?"

"Make it a light one - I can help you dry off a little between here and there." he said. As soon as Nathan gave him the go-ahead, he grabbed Nathan's hands and lifted off the ground.

This was... rather entertaining, really, Nathan reflected as they headed for the mansion. #Not used to flying under someone else's power,# he sent, grinning.

Haroun flew up to Nathan's window. #Glad you liked it. You're on your own to get from here to in there. Unless you want me to throw you through your own window...# he sent mischievously.

#I think we can pass on that,# Nathan sent back with a snort. He opened the window telekinetically, then let go of Haroun's hands, floating over. From inside, he could hear Bella screeching something deeply profane in German. #Thanks for the lift,# he sent. #And that offer of the telekinetic water balloons still stands, by the way. The key would be to get Alison and Moira together, of course...#

#I think it should be arrangeable. Anyone else you'd like to douse? Marie-Ange, perhaps?# he sent back as he floated in midair, wreathed in flame. #And you're welcome.#

Nathan grinned and waved, closing the window behind him. He stopped to watch Haroun fly off, ignoring the way he was dripping on the carpet. Bella was still shrieking, and he finally turned, laughing. "Yes, feathers. I'm coming."