18479/Verily, It's a Name

Verily, It's a Name
Date of Scene:	01 July 2024
Location:	Sanctum Sanctorum
Synopsis:	Stuff
Cast of Characters:	Stephen Strange, Illyana Rasputina

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Stephen Strange has posed:
Afternoon in New York is, as is usual for this particular time of year, a collection of 'take it or leave it' circumstances rolled up into a tidy package. With a temperature of 77 degrees, most New Yorkers would be happy to take that particular temperature. But, with the humidity at 50 percent, that 77 degrees comes with sweat and stickiness that would most definitely be on the 'leave it' pile. A light breeze helps, but with that comes its own issues...namely the ofactorial chaos that comes with millions of people living in the same city. And...with the temperatures continuing to climb, soon will annoyances. It is all part of what makes New York unique.

However, despite the smell of city living and the humidity, there is still more today in the 'take it' column to prompt a certain doctor to go for a walk. With a moment's respite won, Stephen thought that it was an opportune time to do so, before the heat was too much or the humidity gave away to rain showers. It is a walk through the Village, of course, so it isn't terribly far, but it is outside...and it is fresh air. After a particularly exciting and unfortunate experiment within the Sanctum, fresh air is a welcomed commodity.

Poor Wong.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Take it, 77'. Leave it, the humidity is alien to the Demon Queen of Limbo. She honestly might consider just throwing herself into the horrific realms entwined with her DNA to get away from the worst of the sticky, wretched oppression that irritates even an infernal warlord.

She truly wants nothing to do with the pressure-cooker effect that seems to cause all sorts of accidents, fights, spats, and actual fires.

"Ew," she insists after getting a nose-full of malodors from a dumpster. Her head shakes in a vain attempt to clear it out. "When does the trash get picked up? Not so soon. They need to fix that," she mutters, shaking her blonde hair out from her face. Too hot; she should bunch it up. Stephen never seems to have to worry about that, his relationship with his comb a healthy one. "All the tieflings are immune and I am not. How is that fair?"

Stephen Strange has posed:
"It isn't. Truly a travesty." A slight smile might peek through as Stephen continues walking alongside Illyana. The smell, while particularly unique, isn't quite the delight that the Sanctum is currently experiencing, so the unpleasant stench is but a blip, noticed and reacted with a slight wrinkling of the nose then dismissed. "We should ought to do something about that."

Is that a slight tease? Maybe? Still, a slight squeeze of the hand as the two continue onward.

"While I have you here, perhaps you can assist with a quandry." Oh...nothing good happens when Strange asks a question. "When considering hybrid humanoid stages. Do you feel it should be customary to use the naming nomenclature of the primary entity named last? Like, for instance, our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Do we emphasize the human aspect at the end because it is primary, or should it be mentioned first, such as Man-Spider?" A beat. "Which, admittedly, does not roll off the tongue as nearly as fluidly as Spider Man."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"I agree." Stephen walking through the city is hardly a strange event. Illyana? Also walks a lot of places, despite having the gifted ability to teleport herself between the planes with a step into Limbo on the way. However, nothing is quite so uncommon as the pair of them walking together, hand in hand, because work so often does not permit the time for long. Someone might shoot at them or complain; a bus runs by, the X-Men call. That's how it often goes.

"We could send the dumpster to... who has earned your irritation lately? Mordru? Mordred? Morgan? " That's quite a theme.

Who deserves trash from the backend of things?
Thought evaporates when he brings up spiders. A raise of her eyebrows follows along. "Being 'Magik,' I am a poor judge. Younger me thought she was edgy." Or something terrible like that. "People describe things as 'this' man with the humanizing emphasis on the man. We try to stretch the descriptor into determining what kind of man. A man like a spider. A man like a bat. A man like an X." Hey! That doesn't count. "The adjective affects the essential similarity."

Stephen Strange has posed:
The codename of his partner-in-walking brings up a chuckle as Illyana touches on the 'why' of the name. "Edgy. At least there is thought there. I am merely myself. Hardly creative on my part." Creative? No. Not necessarily. Egotistical? Oh, certainly. Keeping the Doctor appellation when he no longer practices medicine is not necessarily a humble gesture. "So yes. The common denominator is placing the emphasis on the end of such combination names. It is interesting, considering, then that flipping the order around instills a wholly monstrous vision. Like, for your example. A man bat gives impressions of winged rodents 6 feet tall..a sort of vampiric visage. A bat man? Either a person with the predication of dressing up in armor and a cape...or a person holding on too long to the job of gathering ash bats from baseball players."

The joke that Stephen offers doesn't sit long. No...he has something on his mind. "As for my example, a man-spider is quite different from a Spider-man. Again, it takes on that monstrous quality, doesn't it? A figure with six arms, legs, and compound eyes. It takes quite the imagination to conjure one up."

But wait...there was mention of the dumpster. "Oh...to teleport trash. I would admit, all you listed are tempting targets. But, it would hardly be civilized to sully our hands, even for a moment, to transport such filth to such filth." A moment's respite before Strange speaks again. "Now...having our ill-reputed acquaintances trash each other, literally? That would be most entertaining."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"I kept it out of pride and spite more than anything. What else am I to call myself?" She shrugs her shoulders, making the point, trying not to breathe in too strongly. "Doctor Magik? Doctor Fate is taken and his helmet is an angry thing in my stories. Doctor you are, by practice. I just have doctorate in my degree title." It helps to be able to bend to the tangle of Limbo's time to make up for tests.

She flicks her hair out of her face, sweat beading on her scalp. Nothing to be done for it right now. "Man-bat. That is horrendous. You have said it and now it will exist, Stephen, you realize this? We are walking in a minefield. You set the claymores off and now we are going to be besieged by these awful spiders that look and walk like men. Have you read too much Kafka? Was it my espresso you drank? "

He needs a careful look-over as she tugs him lightly to her. The better to look up. "What if our enemies think the trash came from the other side? They could yell at one another. Or stab; I'm partial to that."

Stephen Strange has posed:
"Doctor I am."

The affirmation is repeated. Once. There might have been more, but it is Illyana's exclamation that takes Stephen by surprise. Surprise and amusement enough for the blonde to pull him to her. An arm encircles her waist, holding her lightly as the thought of man-sized flying rodents actually causes him to laugh. Horrendous, indeed. "As much as I would like to believe that I have the power to create with but a naming, I do not believe we are in any danger. Certainly not from humanoid spiders. I haven't picked up Kafka in ages...and even I know better than to partake of your espresso, darling Illyana. If I wish to ever sleep again, that is."

And...the thought of their rogues' gallery, or at least Stephen's, fighting each other over trash brings another chuckle. "I am partial to stab as well, truth be told. Especially over garbage. Somehow, that just seems rather amusing to me."