Owner	Pose
Lydia Dietrich	It's been a couple of days since Lydia's sojourn into the astral plane with Clarice. While she was glad that Clarice had the presence of mind to text her that they were okay, her message was a little terse, which left Lydia wondering if Clarice was mad at her or not. She couldn't fathom /why/ Clarice might be mad at her but her anxiety says that it's a possibility and just wouldn't let go of that thought. She's currently sitting down on her couch, reading one of the many novice magical tomes she had bought to get a better grasp at what had happened to her. She's been tipping her toes in the whole magic scene, trying to get answers where science and her rabbi could not. Lydia's powers vex her. Not the controlling ectoplasm part. That's easily explained by her x-gene. It's like every other kenisis out there. It's the 'where does the ectoplasm come from?' question that she wants answered, and 'how does she generate so much of it.'
Clarice Ferguson	And then there's a rap at the door. It's the nature of Clarice's power that she's not much used to waiting - she goes where she wants. When she wants. She doesn't //have// to wait for Lydia to open the door - but she does, arms folding across her waist, gaze studying the door - and then landing with puzzlement on the mezzuzah. What... is that? What purpose does it serve? It is some sort... tech? Is it for security? Is it just... decorative?     Weird.
Lydia Dietrich	Lydia looks up from her reading, scowling. Who on earth could that be? "Just a second!" she calls out, and quickly goes and puts the book back in it's bookshelf. She looks around her living room which is just /strewn/ with magic paraphernalia and panics a little, but there's just no time to clean everything up, so she just hopes it's a solicitor she can shoo away. She walks up to the peep hole and peers through it. Oh. It's Clarice. Maybe she really /is/ mad at her. She unlocks her door and swings it open. "Hi there, Clarice," she greets with a smile. "Come in, come in." She takes a step back to let the other mutant into her apartment before shutting and locking the door behind her. "Can I offer you anything to drink? I have tea, coffee, water, juice?"
Clarice Ferguson	"Hey, Lydia," Clarice greets the woman as she steps through. She gives a small - slightly awkward smile, followed by a shrug of her shoulders. Her gaze flicks around the room, taking in the magic things without too much comprehension. "Anything's fine, really. Umm - what's the thing on the door, though?" she asks curiously - miming the slant of the mezzuzah. "I don't think I've seen one of those, before."     Then something jiggles loose in her mind as she recalls a lesson someone once attempted to pound into her brain, "This is a nice place!" Yup. See? Social nicities observed.
Lydia Dietrich	"Oh that?" Lydia says, looking at what Clarice is talking to. "It's a mezuzah, a little prayer to God. It's a Jewish thing." Assuming that that should be explanation enough, she bustles over to the kitchen and pours water into the teakettle, setting it over the burners of her stove. "Thank you," she says, dipping her head in acknowledgement of the compliment. "It's a little messy right now since I'm working on something, but it's a nice little apartment." Indeed it is. Located in an expensive part of Brooklyn it keeps her close to her family and to Mutant Town. She walks around the little kitchen island and leans back on it. "So what brings you around?"
Clarice Ferguson	A prayer to God? "...oh," Clarice replies without any comprehension. Religion didn't play any role in her life. She didn't understand why it did for other people. ...probably best not to prod at it, though.     "Oh, I- well. I just... wanted to check in. You know, after all the excitement... the other night. Let you know Nicolai, he's really doing fine. Once he- he just needed to warm up a little. And see if you were okay after all that. I know it was weird."
Lydia Dietrich	"More like surreal," Lydia jokes, trying to make light of the situation. "I... keep finding myself in these situations. Where.." she flails a hand helplessly trying to express what she feels, "/things/ happen. Like the bombing in Bushwick, and then there was this bus that ended up in the bay, and then there was /that/." She shakes her head. "I'm still trying to understand what that was." "I mean, I'm pretty sure it was the astral plane. The whole thing was rife with imagery.... imagery aimed specifically at /you/." She shakes her head. "I should be the one asking how you are. That couldn't have been easy." She pauses and watches Clarice for a small moment. "So. How're you holding up?"
Clarice Ferguson	"The astral plane, yeah," Clarice confirms. "Nicolai's power allows him to travel there. He's not sure how we got pulled in." Clarice's gaze is turned away from Lydia as she responds, studying some of the magical paraphernalia without touching - and without showing any comprehension of its purpose. "Oh, I'm fine. No one was hurt, so... What's there to complain about?" Her expression - what portion of it can be seen in this moment - is polite, but a bit flat, and guarded.
Lydia Dietrich	Lydia folds her arms and scowls. "No one was hurt but you. Not all wounds are physical." Whatever it is she's about to say next is interrupted by the shrill whistle of the teakettle. She works her way back around the island and takes the kettle off the pot and gets out a couple of mismatched mugs for the tea. "Do you like sugar or cream with your tea?" She looks over her shoulder and teases lightly, "Even if you're drinking it just to be polite?" It doesn't sound like she's much bothered by that. Once she makes the tea for herself and for her guest, she comes back out and hands Clarice's mug over to her. "There you go. Like I was saying, I don't think I understand all of it, but it was pretty obvious that what happened was a brutal stab to the heart." Lydia takes her mug and slides into a chair, looking up at Clarice expectantly.
Clarice Ferguson	"Sugar," Clarice answers simply, stilling keeping her features turned partway away from Lydia, her jaw tensing at the woman's words. As she approaches with the mug, though, she manages to look towards her, a smile sliding into place. "Thank you," she adds. Most of her social skills were ingrained into her by Lorna - and she tries to follow them.     Besides, as she takes a seat, and sips at the tea, it gives her something to do as she stalls responding. After two sips she asks simply, "Are you aware of Genosha's history with its mutant citizens - when the Magistrates ruled it? Before Magneto freed the island?"     A history lesson? Perhaps Clarice was simply avoiding Lydia's inquiry.
Lydia Dietrich	Lydia purses her lips as she considers her response. "I know there was... experiments done on mutants there. Slavery, too. All sorts of horrible things until Magneto came and liberated them all." She seems uncomfortable talking about such atrocities, staring resolutely at the liquid of her tea. "And then there was the genocide that happened."
Clarice Ferguson	Clarice nods her head in confirmation, taking another sip of her tea. "I'm Genosha. Magneto and the Brotherhood freed me. And we fought together against the Sentinels when they came. I evacuated as many people as I could, but I can only teleport so many at a time, and one of the Sentinels knocked me unconscious. I barely survived." Her expression remains calm - almost neutral as she speaks, as if she was talking about a run to the grocery store.     There were somethings she'd learned to repeat as mere, rote facts - and not to peer at them too closely.
Lydia Dietrich	Lydia presses her lips into a thin line as she listens. She reaches out as if to take Clarice's hand to comfort her, but hesitates. She doesn't know if the touch will be accepted as sympathy or pity. Slowly she pulls her hand back. "I'm sorry," she says, heartfelt. She breathes out, "Not that the sympathy of a spoiled rich kid amounts to a hill of beans but... I can see the ghosts of those you couldn't save haunt you still, and the astral plane just threw that in your face."
Clarice Ferguson	Clarice is not big on touching, in general, and her gaze goes uncertainly to the approaching hand. There's a momentary look of relief as Lydia thinks better of it. She takes another sip of tea before agreeing with a simple, "Yes. I saw many faces I recognized from Genosha... who were lost that day. It was difficult seeing them again." She looks down into her tea for a moment, then back up at Lydia.     Was it possible she hadn't recognized Fatimata Inyene? That she hadn't recognized the significance?     That would be a relief.
Lydia Dietrich	"But Fatimata...." She says softly. "She was special to you." Not a question, rather an observation. "She was the twist of the knife." Her eyes take in how Clarice responds when a realization hits her like a blow. The javelin that took Fatimata down. She'd seen that tonight. "Oh." She says, eyes widening. "Oh!" She scowls. Yet again she finds herself in the presence of a murderer who is trying to do better. She shouldn't be surprised considering the company that she keeps. How many patrols has she walked with Clarice and never put the two together? Lydia lets out a breath that she didn't know she was holding in a deep sigh, avoiding the gaze of the purple mutant. "I don't pretend to understand how somebody can be pushed to do that," she admits. "But if I can withhold judgement for Mystique, It would be unfair of me not to withhold it for you, too."
Clarice Ferguson	Clarice watches the realization dawn on Lydia's face and her expression shifts quickly from striken, to tense, to a carefully neutral mask. Again - she takes a sip of her tea to give herself a moment to gather her thoughts.     "It's not a matter of being pushed. In the Mutate Program - it isn't a choice. They alter you. Put you in collars. Control you. Your will isn't your own. Most were used for mundane things - building infastructure, generating energy. ...they triggered my powers when I was six, and started training me as an assassin, but Magneto freed me, and gave me my own mind. My own... will.     "...but I can never undo what I was made to do." She delivers this terrible facts evenly, in a calm voice - her gaze fixed on nothing for most of it, though her gaze flicks to Lydia a few times. "If they'd've asked me to kill my parents? I would have done it without hesitation or remorse. And I wouldn't have felt anything afterwards. I wasn't me at the time. I was a tool."
Lydia Dietrich	Lydia gasps in horror, her hands going to her mouth. Not at what Clarice had done, no. She's horrified by what had been done /to/ Clarice. "Oh my... I never knew..." She shakes her head, "I'm sorry. I never knew that they did those kinds of things... to children no less!" She's trying hard not to feel pity for Clarice. She doesn't need pity. Pity doesn't help anything. So instead she feels grief. Grief for the loss of Clarice's childhood. And anger. Anger for those who would even consider to do that to another human being. She's at a loss at what to say in the face of such tragedy. "I think I understand," she says, finally. "That is, as much as somebody like me /can/ understand."
Clarice Ferguson	"I don't always understand it, myself," Clarice remarks, another sip taken from her glass. "And I try not to think on it too much. The past is over, and there'a nothing that can be done about it. What good does it do to dwell?" And then there are days where a cruel trick of fate forces you to stare into the face of your past.     "Nicolai said that those people weren't really there - it wasn't really their spirits. It was just illusions I'd conjured to torture myself."     Yaaaaay.
Lydia Dietrich	Lydia purses her lips together in a thoughtful moue. "I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it that quickly." She looks up at Clarice and gives her a sad smile. "Like I said earlier. Not all scars are visible." She opens her mouth as if to continue, but then she suddenly closes it with a clack of her teeth and shakes her head frowning. "I'm sorry. You don't need me to play armchair psychiatrist. I want to help. It's in my nature to want to help, but I'm sure I'm the last person you'd want it from." She's left staring at her cooling tea, still undrunk, the corner of her eyes getting a bit wet. She takes a deep breath and looks up at her guest. "I'm sorry," she apologizes again. "I must be taking up a lot of your time." She doesn't move to get up though, letting Clarice take the lead as to whether or not she wants to stay or go.
Clarice Ferguson	"I'd get nothing done if I dwelled on my scars," Clarice answers simply. She takes another sip of her tea before adding, "Anyways. I just wanted to check in on you after... everything." To see what the woman'd surmised. "I hope it doesn't change your opinion of me too much.     "And I'd be grateful if you kept the knowledge to yourself. There aren't many who know what I used to do."
Lydia Dietrich	Lydia nods and gives Clarice a wan grin. "It doesn't. Not really, no. It puts things into context which is helpful." And, really, that's the truth of it. "Don't worry," she assures her. "I won't tell a soul. Not even my Rabbi." It's a lame attempt to lighten the mood a little bit.
Clarice Ferguson	Clarice nods her head, and finishes her tea before rising. "Thank you, Lydia." She gives the other mutant a small smile. "And Mystique knows about all of this - of course. If there was anything else you were wondering about all of this." She lets out a sigh before adding, "I'm sorry you got dragged into my nightmare."
Lydia Dietrich	Lydia shakes her head, standing up as well. "I'm just glad I was there to drag you out." And that's the truth of it, too. She gives Clarice a smile. "I'll see you out on patrol, okay?"
Clarice Ferguson	That gives Clarice pause - and she freezes in place for a moment, replaying the events. She hadn't considered that. Would... Nicolai have gotten her out? Surely... "Huh," she remarks. Her reaction this is proof, more than anything, that she's really tried not to dwell on those events. "Thank you for that. I suppose you're right - I was lucky you were there." She at Lydia briefly before adding, "See you on patrol." Then - without bothering to head for the door, she simply blinks out.     //Teleporters//.
Lydia Dietrich	Lydia stands there blinking at the blank space where Clarice had been just moments ago. Then the tears she's been holding back since Clarice let her know of her tragedy starts streaming down her face. Anger and frustration cause her hands to clench and shake. How could people be so cruel? How could people like that exist in this world? How can she be so helpless against it? All this frustration cumulates in her and she slams her fist down on the table, "FUCK!" ... not noticing that her ectoplasm has encased her fist, breaking it in two. Somewhere in a deep place on the edge of reality, something stirs.