2527/Ides of July: Rasputin

Ides of July: Rasputin
Date of Scene:	20 July 2020
Location:	Roof Tower
Synopsis:	Piotr is in LURVE?! Birb is the word!
Cast of Characters:	Illyana Rasputina, Piotr Rasputin

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Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Illyana Rasputina, nomad of the Xavier's School, has been weirdly absent. Except when she is not.

The proof of that comes to the fore when she sits on the cross-shaped tower, her feet hanging over the side. One of the chairs pulled up serves as a space supporting a plate of black bread, lavished with the modest amount of butter fit to barely leave a glazed smear over the surface. A bottle filled by water and a bit of lemon lies to the side. Prisoner's rations given the depth and quantity of the larder downstairs, but she rarely eats in volume; neither are the complexities necessary for all she enjoys them and can conjure them from Limbo. The demons excel in ornate, beautifully prepared meals on tables complete with pentacles and incantations to please their mistress.

Sometimes a girl just wants bread and a view, sitting up there and watching the world burn....

At sundown, anyway.

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
Piotr's arrival is heralded well in advance as his heavy steps climb the tower. They cover up the sound of smaller footsteps as Boris follows him, though in a harness to not let him just bolt. Piotr has his usual t-shirt and cargo short combination,and in his hand is holding a quarter of a honey cake on a plate with a couple forks, and the hand with the lead has a water bottle's loop in it as well. Call it a brother's intuition, but he keeps climbingand comes to the top of the tower and says, in their native tongue, <<I brought dessert, hopefully you did not ruin appetite?>> Boris of course trots ahead and does his usual "Brrrt" to announce his presence to Illy, whom he views as a vassal.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Wherefore is the silence, the cover of privacy? They need none. Far from it, the stretch of open sky and green grass leads to a greener forest exuding a welcome through the evergreen boughs reaching forth to maple and oak patches. Whatever collisions vibrate under her brother's heavy boots, Illyana can distinguish Piotr from near anyone. Only James comes close, and given that relationship features a keen recognition and awareness of its own, so be it.

She sits there, inelegant in a sense, wearing a shirt held together with forty-seven straps criss-crossed over her back and unfairly stylish capris that would be leggings on anyone else. <<You brought dessert? I did not deserve such things,>> she observes. <<But we have enough bread to break for two.>> Not for Boris, though, who should eat other things. His trotting presence becoming a buzzer warrants a sidelong look from the demon queen, her narrowed, glittering gaze acknowledging the cat as a small creature of divinity but one drop in an ocean of which she commands a pretty large current. "Is my brother behaving?" she asks Boris directly in Russian, too.

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
Piotr smiles and sets the cake down near Illyana on the chair, while bringing up a chair for himself. Boris, meanwhile expresses approval, except for the harness.

<<We breathe, we deserve cake, though bread is also welcome!>> Piotr notes. <<My apologies for not speaking with you sooner. I have been worried about you since the Brainiac ship, but you have been hard to track down, little sister. Are you doing all right?>> His tone is sincere, but has some concern, <<Though I am glad to see you appear unharmed.>>

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Seated as she is on her perch, one shove away from a broken neck in a Shakespearean tragedy, Illyana lightly folds her ankles. She is the prim example of good postures, necessary as the violent upheavals of her reign involve.

"The cake is a lie," she replies, as if Piotr might know what that means. On the other hand, with the New Mutants, he's probably seen Portal brought out and quips made. "It is good bread. A bit stiff and cludgy in spots, but black bread made honestly." Not by her, and not by a breadmaker. It doesn't matter, homemade by someone. "All right? By what measure? I am not dead. The pieces of Genosha still lie out of reach. They say the people inside are alive, going about their lives, physicists who can make the shrunken sections larger. Are you well?"

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
"Heh," Piotr is amused by the Portal reference, he is versed enough to get it, especially since it is eerily similar to his sister's powers. He takes some bread and tries it, "Very good, indeed. The cake is also good, unless you continue to deny its existence." He leans forward and rests his elbows on the wall, "Well, the good news is that all is not lost, that some hope remains." He notes with some positivity in his tone, "But yes, there is work to be done and I will help where I can." The larger Rasputin thinks and nods, "I have been doing well since we last spoke. Things have improved by leaps and bounds, though the specter of Brainiac's damned bottles hang over our heads, still." He sighs.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Heh indeed. Theirs is a life scratched in parallels and references no one gets, isn't it?

She looks to the cake and waits for Piotr to take his fill before daring it, braving a sampling of her own. A reasonable slice; she is not one to deny herself basic sustenance when it is offered. "I know no calories," Illyana insists in Russian. Simple as that. "The people remain in my care. So long as it happens, that is good. It will be over soon and we can resume our plight in this world. People will forget Genosha. Its rulers will act as they always have. Our focus remains here, does it not?"

She looks thoughtfully to Piotr, those eyes of hers so pale, ice and the shattered surface of Baikal. "Yes? You have found yourself a path clearer than before."

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
Piotr nods at the calorie reference, but abstains from cake for the moment. He smiles, "And you are capable of protecting them until they can be restored. And da, our focus is here," he gestures to the area around them. "It is our home, now." His mood is actually somewhat lighter than of late. Then she asks a question that makes him blink and nod, though his response is hesitant, "Da. I have found someone who I adore," a pause, "Jean." His cheeks redden inadvertently at that.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Brushing her fingers against her lips, Illyana tastes the crumbs of the cake before committing to a larger piece. The threnody of nightfall sets in slowly, laughing students and music from an open window, the hum of the air conditioning units, compressors working valiantly to keep the old pile cold. Stars do not show, the moon black, but there will be time for its appearance. "She is a good choice," she agrees. "Anyone less is not worthy of you."

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
Piotr nods, "I agree, but I am biased. I've known her as long as I have, and things... just fell into place. Not sure how, but they did, and I am not going to question it. Sometimes good things just happen, da?" He absentmindedly smiles, and then corrects it. "How about you, have you found anyone new?" He takes a drink of his water and finally snags a small piece of cake for himself, eating it slowly to savor it.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"Jean is the icon of Xavier's dream without his failings on that front. Her goodness and her patience suit you, for you are the most noble of us. Perhaps that will check any weaknesses in her, and in you, find strength that you need most." The demon queen is quiet with her cake, taking things relatively well, but then she happens to share her life and dacha with two limbs of a triangle, making life most difficult. "You do not question it. It is. I could question why someone trusts me at all, but down that path, what life is that? Tension and fear will devour all those moments of happiness given to you if you let them, and their power is too great."

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
"I have my own flaws," Piotr notes, looking at his sister with a solemn expression, "But she is indeed the icon for our mission. I do hope and believe that you are right. If you are referring to anyone trusting you, it is because you are my sister and I have seen the good you have done, the good you are doing, and know of the good you can do. You have never deceived me. And many others can say the same." He gives a firm nod and lets his expression relax, "It must be a family trait, to be hard on ourselves." He finishes his small piece of cake, "But you also did not answer my question." He then ponders a little, "Is everything else all right? Is there anything I can do to help?"

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"Everyone has flaws, brother. Do not think it is any other way, da?" It is a statement made with a smirk. "We are not in any way perfect. How boring that would be to sit on a high horse, lording over everyone else? I am not inclined to support this as a good way of life."

Illyana finishes up her small piece of cake and goes for the water bottle, since too much water is hardly possible where she is involved. A slow sip gives a long path to silence, replenishing whatever constitutes her source of energy. Hydration is important in the heat, after all. "I am certainly not that woman who would shoot a bloody bottle, there is that. In a scale of relative wickedness, I can proclaim my sins less than that." Her mouth twists, eyes flat and the echo of her horns probably one step from obvious in the bending light if he squints hard enough. Anger flickers, wrested down to the ground. "A trait to seek to be outsized in our ambitions and aims? You physically embody it." A joke is dry as the desert, but there all the same.

"You cannot set the future, brother. This is a truth. I have seen the dark tidings ahead and my place in facing them. I was asked to give name to a child; when there was hesitation with the other midwife, we had three incarnations of the void. Stay inside with Jean in the nights to come and think of good things. Build community with the other students or with her. It should be enough." Her gaze doesn't waver from the far horizon, seeing things invisible to others, perhaps. "You know we cannot change people or make them do what we want, don't you? Of us all, you are best suited to understand that truth. Most cannot. Love will be what it is. Remember even if I fell, I loved with honest truth. If you find the sword, give it to James. He will know what that means. My anchorage, in the coming night."

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
"Da, we all have our burdens," Piotr says as he listens to his sister, setting his bottle and plate aside. His expression reverts to concern, "Mystique only causes trouble, never has she been of use to us." He grumbles for a little before Illy's joke elicits a chuckle from her big brother.

"I know I am no seer, but I do know that you will never walk alone," Piotr says kindly, and then winces at her description of what is to come, "Is there anything Jean and I can do to help, or any of the others here?" He then nods again, "We cannot force change, but I do not doubt that you have loved honestly, and by James, you mean Jimmy, da?" He ponders a little more, "If I find the sword, give it to him. Just promise that if I can be of help, you will let me know?"

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"Mystique is a broken tool who cuts everyone who touches her, brother. Jean did not taste the anger that she inspired in me, but I will not hesitate to hurt that woman if she hurts any of you. It would not stir the remotest sense of anger or regret in me." Implacable statements from the blonde sorceress, but then, she is only ten going on ten thousand in her midnight aspect. She looks up to Piotr. "You say that with such certainty. Those shoulders hold up the sky, those feet stride the rodina, and we have room to breathe. But you will live your own life, how can you not? You will not always be here."

Her shoulder rolls, the closest she gets to pointing. With him, Illyana is unwilling to be especially coarse. Pointing is rude. "You will want your own space. Dreams not only rooted in education, but those of a grown man with different needs, aspirations shaped by experience. You could long for the forest, a life settled with Jean in your house and privacy these walls do not have. You cannot live your life looking back at me, da? Every soldier needs a house to call his own, when you put your armour away. Where is your peace?"

Those slender fingers curl open, crumbs scattered. "I will not deny you helping me, but for this, we are fighting a god-child. I am a demon. It is what I must do."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
And then, that quiet pause: a nod to the name. "James." It's a peculiar thing, with her. But then, diminutives are on her terms.

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
Piotr nods in agreement regarding Mystique. Then is saddened a little by Illyana pointing out the reality of things, "You are not wrong, but know that if I can I will always help you. We are family." He gives a firm nod. The elder Rasputin does sigh in agreement, though, "I would like my own place someday. But my family, both you and Mikhail, along with our parents, mean a lot to me. Maybe I will grow distant with actual distance or time may get eaten, but I will always be there if I can. My peace comes from knowing those I care for are safe."

Piotr watches the crumbs scatter and then winces at the mention of a god-child, "That... is not good. Something I can not simply punch to fix. In this you are uniquely suited to deal with it." When the identity of whom he is to give the sword to is confirmed, he says, "Then it shall be done."