Owner Pose
Lydia Dietrich     The text message simply read, 'meet me at my apartment at 10 lips heart heart heart.' That's the first Raven has heard from Lydia all day. There was a birthday party for Phoebe early in the evening that she went to, but hadn't come back up to the Asteroid in the interim saying only that 'she had a few things to take care of.'

    When Raven arrives and knocks on the door, Lydia calls out simply, "Come in!" When the door opens she's greeted with quite a sight. The lights of the apartment have been set down low, and all around her apartment red candles have been set giving the entire place a warm feel. The dining room table has been set with a small candelabra in the center, a couple of plates and some wine glasses. The smells coming from the kitchen hint at some kind of garlicy cream sauce and chicken.

    Lydia herself is dressed down in lingerie. Her hair has been relaxed and let down in curly waves down her back. The lingerie itself is black lace, but the lacy flower bits are deep red in contrast, which only compliments her flawless alabaster skin.

    "Happy Valentines Day, lover," she says throatily, giving Raven a playful smirk. "Thought I'd do something special for you. I made you some nice dinner and ... well ... maybe later I can have /my/ dinner." One could swear at times that Lydia is more a succubus than a vampire.
Raven Darkholme Things were calmer on the asteroid, though there were still refugees who remained. Getting back into Manhattan for some would take time, so much damage done required time for rebuilding and repairs. Thankfully though, the tension that had gripped the place had started to let up.

Mystique had stated numerous times she wasn't a romantic type of person, so for the most part Valentine's Day was just another day. She had, however purchased something for Lydia but when the woman had said she wasn't coming back to the asteroid, the cobalt mutant had merely set it aside. With the text inviting her to the apartment, she realized immediately that Lydia was up to something.

The package she carried as she arrived was medium in size, clearly jewelry of some kind, wrapped in red paper with a white bow. Mystique herself was dressed in a white mini-dress of shimmering silk, with a crop jacket over it to conceal the open back and spaghetti straps. Her feet were sheathed in a pair of white leather pumps, and she'd pulled her hair up into a fancy bindle of curls on her head.

When the door opens and Lydia is dressed in what has to be some of the sexiest lingerie on the planet, Mystique's eyes widen. All she can do for a moment is thrust the package at Lydia and drool, well not really but she might as well be drooling.

"Happy Valentine's Day," she finally manages, before slipping into the apartment to wrap her arms around Lydia and kiss her. For that one moment, her brain had disengaged... it was now back.
Lydia Dietrich     Lydia laughs in delight as the lingerie has the desired effect. She returns the kiss deeply, and when they break, she says, "Thank you." She disengages, and takes the presents on the table and starts to carefully unwrap them. Of course Lydia is the kind of girl who doesn't just rip open presents.

    She delicately slips off the paper and opens up the boxes and her eyes go wide. "Oh my God! These are /beautiful!/ I have the perfect dress to go with this!" She whooshes away to her bedroom, and after a few minutes, comes out wearing an elegant emerald floor length dress. The emerald studded life tree star of David necklace hangs above the ankh of her coven, and the matching bracelet and earrings are in their place.

    "Thank you," she says, leaning up to give Raven another kiss. "They're lovely. And you said that you didn't believe in romance," she gently teases. "C'mon," she says, taking her by the hand and leading her to the table. "I've got a great dinner for you. Chicken and seafood carbonara, a Caesar salad, and some garlic bread. For dessert I made some tiramisu, and I have some leftover cupcakes from the party."
Raven Darkholme As Lydia opens her present, Mystique watches with interest for her reaction. She was not the best at giving gifts, usually she sought things that people might need, rather than trinkets and jewelry. With Lydia however, certain things screamed that they needed to belong to her. The necklace, bracelet and earrings had screamed so loudly that Mystique had in fact purchased them several months prior and had been holding onto them, neatly wrapped, for the right time to give them to Lydia.

When Lydia rushes off to change into the dress, then returned, Mystique offers a slightly pouty bottom lip for all of thirty seconds. Attempting to seem upset over Lydia being dressed, but she can't hold the pout long before she smiles broadly.

"That dress is lovely on you," she offers as she smiles. "And your right, it matches the jewelry perfectly."

Whisked to the table, she takes a moment to look Lydia over again, reaching up to caress her cheek before giving one of the earring at her lobe a little wiggle, then she finally sits down. "That sounds wonderful, Lydia, thank you. I... didn't know you could cook," she admits with an almost sheepish smirk. "There's still a lot of things I don't know about you."
Lydia Dietrich     "I cooked all the time when I was living by myself," Lydia says as she moves into the kitchen area and starts bringing out plates. "I didn't cook up on the Asteroid because the kitchen was Eddie's domain, and he's happy to fulfill any requests you might have." She sets down a bowl containing the salad, and a plate containing a thick slice of home made garlic bread that's been lightly grilled. "And after I got turned... well... the urge to cook for myself left altogether."

    "I still bake, though," she says returning to the kitchen. "It's meditative, though. Something I can do to clear my head when I've got writers block, that kind of thing. And, it's easy for me to share the finished product so I don't have to worry about it all going to waste." She returns with the carbonara and adds some to Raven's plate, and then a little bit to hers.

    "Tonight, though I wanted to try something I've never done before." She returns to the kitchen, and this time comes back with some sparkling white wine. "Carbonara isn't that hard to pull off. Surprisingly easy, in fact." She pours a generous amount for Raven, but just a little for herself. Anything more would go to waste. "I didn't have the guts to try to make my own Caesar salad dressing though."
Raven Darkholme As Mystique watches Lydia going back and forth to the kitchen, an almost goofy grin settles in place on her face. It had been a /long/ time since she got to see Lydia /be/ Lydia. Just talking about what she loved while doing something she was interested in. In this case is was cooking and making a meal for Mystique to enjoy, which from the smell of the food, she most certainly would.

"Baking is the one thing I have troubles with," she comments, looking over the meal. "It all smells amazing Lydia, thank you."

When the wine gets poured, she picks up the glass to offer a toast of, "A toast to the most amazing woman I've known, and the last woman I will ever love."
Lydia Dietrich     Lydia settles in on her side of the table and raises her glass, "May we never be separated." She reaches over and gives a little clink of the glass before taking a sip. "Mm, that's good wine."

    "Baking is just another skill like any other," she says, as she watches Raven try out the food. "It helped that I started early, helping out in the kitchen when my mom was baking." She lets out a little chuckle as she grins, "Of course when I was teeny tiny I would get flour all over the place. Can you imagine trying to get flour out of this hair?"

    She turns to her plate and looks at the carbonara for a moment. Her fork hesitates, at first, but then more decisively dives into the creamy noodles and takes a bite. Delicious. And the heavens didn't part and God didn't strike her down for it.

    "What about you? Do you have any good childhood memories? It can't have been /all/ bad," she says.
Raven Darkholme When the toast is finished, Mystique takes a sip of the wine and nods her agreement to Lydia's voiced approval. It was a good wine, though wine wasn't really something she normally enjoyed. Seemed everything was better when shared with someone you love, even wine.

Each thing on the plate is then tries, a small bite to get the flavors and textures. "I was right," she offers with a smile. "This is all just as good as it looks, and wine pairs with it nicely."

The idea of flour in Lydia's hair makes her laugh. "That would be difficult to get out, all those beautiful curls, but I'll get you were adorable covered in flour."

She wasn't really trying to stall in answering the question asked, but she does take a little time for a few bites before she finally does speak about it. "I was born in 1879 Lydia, to an extremely poor family," she finally replies softly. "I don't really recall anything good about any of it." She pauses here a moment, clearly trying to find one good memory to share. "Before my mutation, I remember my mother used to braid my hair every morning, while she talked about the 'someday' when I would have a husband and a home of my own to take care of."

She takes another sip of the wine as she looks across the table to Lydia. "I remember climbing a very large tree on the property. My mother would go to work in the big house and my dad worked in the fields, and I was supposed to be at school. I'd climb to the top of the tree and look at the world from there, and think about all the possibilities that, at the time, I was convinced I'd never have." She shrugs her shoulders slightly. "I realize it's not much, but really those are the only memories that stuck with me from before my mutation."
Lydia Dietrich     Lydia listens, nodding. She knew that Raven had had a hard life, even when she was born, which only got harder after her mutation hit. "It's the little things that are important," She says, looking at her with love in her eyes. "Like climbing that tree and looking out onto a world of possibilities. Life hasn't been kind to you, yet you've managed to come out on top. You didn't let it beat you down."

    She laughs lightly, "I remember my mom struggling with my own hair when I was young. Her hair is not nearly as curly, and neither of her sisters had curly hair either, so she had no idea how to handle it." She gets up and walks over to where her purse is hanging up and pulls out her phone. "It always tangled so badly so it hurt when she tried to brush it, but I had the worst jewfros as a kid."

    She walks over to the other side of the table, opening the pictures in the phone and flipping through them until she finds the one that she wants. It's a picture of grumpy Lydia, no more than five or six, scowling with her arms folded and her hair poofed out in an unruly mass. "That's me when I didn't want my mom to brush my hair."
Raven Darkholme Mystique sets her fork down to look over at the picture. She tries very hard not to laugh, then fails horribly and starts laughing. "Gods Lydia, you looked so pissed off!" she laughs, smiling brightly with a sparkle in her yellow eyes. "But seeing that... yeah, I get it, that would hurt to try and brush. Hair like that requires special perms to relax the curls just so you can get a brush through it."

Giving her head a small shake in amusement, she takes another sip of her wine before collecting her fork. "I only managed to get where I am because of Irene," she admits plainly. "She kept me from going completely nuclear on humans, though she had no real love for them either, we did share the desire to change the world. That was our bond, the thing that drew us to one another and the thing that kept me from being pure insanity or a sociopathy."

Taking another bite of the wonderful dinner, she changes the subject off Irene and her childhood by asking, "What was it in your childhood that lead you to be a writer?"
Lydia Dietrich     Lydia grins at Raven's reaction, "I know, right? Mom took it in order to blackmail me with it later in life, but joke's on her, I love this picture." She walks back over to her purse to put the phone away. "There are other blackmail pictures she has, though. I'm sure in time you'll get to see them."

    She returns to her end of the table and takes a seat, taking a sip of the wine before answering her question. "A combination of an overactive imagination, a love of reading, and the internet. I really got into Supernatural when I was thirteen, which started me down the path of reading supernatural or urban fantasy books. Then I discovered fan fiction... stories fans write set in the same universe that they're a fan of... and started writing some of my own."

    She laughs and shakes her head. "All my early stuff is so terribly bad, but it's out there on the internet if you /really/ want to read it." She pokes at her carbonara a bit and takes another small bite. Easier the second time around. "I found the erotic sections of the fanfiction sites pretty easily. That was my introduction to sex, if you can believe it. I didn't really connect with the het ships, but the gay ships were more interesting to me."

    "Neither really pressed my buttons, though," she continues. "There really wasn't much in the way of lesbian ships in the Supernatural or Twilight fandom, though. I mean, they were /there/ but they never grabbed top spots or any acclaim, but what few I read just... confused me. It wasn't until high school that I figured it all out."
Raven Darkholme Mystique listens intently as Lydia explains. Part of it she had heard bits and pieces of in the past, but never the full explanation of it all. A vivid part of her imagination could picture a young, green auraed Lydia at the computer, reading sex stories and attempting to understand it all without context, then writing about it based entirely on what she had read. Of course Lydia was sitting in one of those picture book bedrooms with every possible luxury she could want, posters on the wall, and a comfortable bed that was only used for sleeping.

"The state of America wouldn't accept gay or lesbian relationships until recently, and even now..." she sighs, shaking her head a little. "It's like pulling teeth. One step forward, two back. Two steps forward, then one back. Most of the country still believes in the whole 'what I don't know about doesn't bug me' and 'what you do in you bedroom' bull, but then America was founded on Christian belief, hard core Purest thinking."

A few more bites are taken, before another sip of wine washes it down and she sits back. "Since it is Valentine's day," she then says, eyes settling fully on Lydia. "A day of love, supposedly... what are your hopes and dreams for the future Lydia? It's not something we've ever talked about."
Lydia Dietrich     Lydia nods in agreement, "You saw how my mother reacted when she found out I was dating you. She's..." she hesitates on what to say next. "She's better about it now. I still haven't told her I'm a vampire yet. Or a witch. You can imagine how /that/ will go." She shakes her head, "But I need to do it... soon. I can't hide these parts of myself forever. My dad knows, and understands and loves me anyway, so no matter what I'll always have him in my corner."

    "How far into the future are we talking about?" she asks. "We know I won't die unless I befall some misfortune, and who knows how long /you'll/ live." Her golden eyes unfocuses as she stares out the window into the black night. "My immediate future is, once we've taken care of the angels, is to take you on a romantic getaway in... I keep saying 'Paris', but really it could be anywhere. Just you and me, no stress, relaxing."

    "Beyond that, though..." she shrugs. "I want to keep writing. I want to keep helping people... /especially/ mutants. I want to see the day where mutants lead humanity to a brighter future." She turns her focus back on Raven and gives her a small smile. "That's, oh, say, the next twenty years or so."

    "During that I want to be with you, love you, inspire you, like you do me." She gets a pained look in her eye as her gaze drops down to her plate. "I wanted to have children with you, but I was always afraid to bring up the subject. Well, for one, because it's way too early in our relationship to really seriously discuss it and, two, because your past experience with your previous children may have soured you on the idea."

    She scowls, "But it's a moot point, now. I can't have children anymore. That's.... that's something I'm going to have to give up to the bonfire." She pokes at her carbonara as she tries to get a grip on her emotions. She looks back up and gives out an amused grunt. "Marrying you wasn't in the plan. I didn't think you'd be the kind of person who'd marry again. But you're always full of surprises..."
Raven Darkholme Mystique's yellow eyes watch Lydia as she talks, soft, caring, understanding. Lydia had dreams, something she herself hadn't really thought of beyond mutant's controlling the world. That had changed of course, now it was all about mutants and equality, but still, that was all she had focused herself on. Lydia changed the biggest part of that, and continued to make her look past what she wanted to what she could maybe have. Friends, family, a real life, not so much hatred and sacrifice.

"I married for love once," she says softly. "Irene. The other marriages were for purposes that had nothing to do with love, and were more about what they could give me to get me ahead or more power."

She swirls the wine in the glass then takes another sip. "I never thought I'd fall in love again, so naturally I never thought I'd get married again," she continues with a smile. "Then I met you, and all that changed. As for children," a light shrug of her shoulders. "I've had two children and fucked up three, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like the chance to get it right. Perhaps for us Lydia, we'll have to turn to science. After all, if they can make perfect clones of people these days, what's to say they can't use both our DNA to make a viable embryo? Don't throw that dream out just yet."
Lydia Dietrich     "I know," Lydia says with a sad little sigh. "And we could always adopt. Hell, I'm tempted to take in Alberta. She's such a sweet little thing, and it'll be so hard for her to find a loving family just because she looks like an alligator." She shakes her head, though. "But I wanted a baby of my own. I wanted to get pregnant and bring the child to term. It was all part of my Lesbian American Dream. Have the 2.5 kids, own a home, have a dog, that kind of thing.

    "I think what I've got is much better than that, now," though. She grins at Raven, "I can't imagine you settling down like that, and really, I can't imagine myself doing that anymore either. There's so much wrong in the world, and there's so much /good/ I could do. It seems irresponsible to just.... squirrel myself away."

    There's a moment of silence before she shifts subjects. "Tell me about Irene. You've mentioned her once before to me. She must have been something if you had married her."
Raven Darkholme There was part of that dream, the married, 2.5 children, a home, a dog, that Mystique just could not fathom. Never in her life had she thought of anything like that as 'life'. That was other people, that was normal people, even more normal mutants, those were the things they wanted and got by working hard for it. Even when she was married to Irene, it wasn't a dream they'd had, the work always came first.

"I can understand just one part of that," she finally says. "The wanting to carry a child of your own. The rest, you're right. I don't think I could 'settle down', as you put it. I'd try, but the work always comes first. That might be different if I had a child, that I didn't drop in a well or leave..." she stops there, because the other child isn't one she'd mentioned and still didn't want to.

"Irene... Destiny, as I preferred to call her," she says softly, perhaps too softly. "There really isn't much to say. She was beautiful, amazing, blind and had a precognitive power that was... startling, scary and too accurate. We met when she needed help working her way through her own journals of visions of the future. Spent months together working on it, and fell in love."
Lydia Dietrich     Lydia laughs. "I was eighteen when I first had that dream," she says. "It didn't survive contact to the real world the moment I got so drunk that I forgot myself and tried to get you into my bed. I knew the moment we decided to start dating that that dream would never happen with you." She waves a dismissive hand, "It's okay, though. What I have with you is much more fulfilling than whatever /that/ would have been."

    "In five years, once we're happily married and still stomping the faces of bigots we'll revisit the children thing," she says. "All of this is still so new to me, and part of me is afraid that I'm rushing into things but the other part says that this feels so /right/ you know?"

    She watches as Raven continues to eat, and talk about her first love, with something of a contented smile, just enjoying listening to her lover talk. Eventually she asks, "You said that you still didn't know a lot about me. I'm only twenty five so there isn't that much to know. Not compared to you who has lived /lifetimes/. What else are you curious about?"
Raven Darkholme The last few bites of the meal are taken before Mystique just settles back with wine glass in hand. "Honestly?" She says with a chuckle. "I may know you better than I realize, but I keep thinking there's something more. That may be my... darker side, my fear that something is lurking in the shadows waiting to destroy everything. That's what happens to me with love, so... maybe I'm just imagining the things I don't know."

Although she holds the glass, she doesn't take another sip just yet. "If we add the fact that you are young, that I am your first, that perhaps there are some 'wild oats' to be sowed... my mind plays tricks on me. Then you do something like to night, and I realize it's all just in my head. I love you more than I've loved any other woman in my entire life Lydia, and that includes Irene. The last time I loved like this was Azazel, and..." she sighs, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. "He was taken away as well. I think... that's why I get emotionally cold, or why I did, everyone I've loved, no matter how much or how little, has been taken away."

Now she takes a large sip, and sets the glass down. "You've changed all that, but my brain hasn't caught up. I /do/ know you, intimately," she wiggles her brows. "I know what you love, what you like, your favorite color, what you dream about, what you hope for... that's all that really matters."
Lydia Dietrich     Lydia gets a sly grin, "Oh you've seen my dark side, all right." The little pinpoints of light that surround her turn black, and it seems that the light in the room dims and the temperature chills a bit. Eyes red and fangs out she slowly stands so that the candles cast light underneath her, giving her a sinister glow. "I vahnt to suck your bluuuhd!"

    It's all ruined when Lydia can no longer hold her expression, and starts having a giggling fit, and the room brightens again. "Sorry, sorry," she says, sitting back down. "But, really, you've seen me at my worst, my most dangerous. If that hasn't scared you off, then nothing else about me will. That's why I feel so safe around you."
Raven Darkholme Mystique plays along, perhaps over dramatically but that's love. As the lights dim and Lydia goes into her 'dracula enchantment' reenactment, she rolls her head to the side to expose her neck, trying to look like she's been charmed into giving in to the desires of the vampire... she even slumps a little in her chair. It's not entirely believable, but what it is is improvement. She is actually /playing/, rather than being serious all the time, something else Lydia brought out in her.

When Lydia starts giggling, she chuckles as well then stands up and around around the table to place a soft kiss against Lydia's neck, then one for her lips. "You're beautiful when your deadly," she whispers, then caresses her lover's cheek. "You're beautiful all the time. I've seen your deepest, darkest moments, and you've been mine... you know the horrible monster that I was, which honestly doesn't compare even slightly to your monster. You stayed, even when you learned the truth."

Reaching down, she collects one of Lydia's hands with her own then lifts it to her lips to kiss the back of her hand. "You have no reason to fear me leaving, so bring on the dark, and the light, and the love... you're stuck with me."
Lydia Dietrich     Lydia stretches her neck out for easier access to be kissed, and lets out a murr of pleasure. "The truth is what makes you who you are," she says after the kiss. "And I find that beautiful... and dangerous... and /sexy./ You can look like anybody that you want... anybody that /I/ want, and all I want is this."

    "'Till death do we part," she chuckles. "And, really? Not even then. I've already come back once for you. And I'll do so again, and again, and again, until Death finally gives up and leaves us in peace." She snakes a hand around Raven's waist, "Really, it's you who is stuck with me."