ArchivedLogs:Light and Dark

Light and Dark
Dramatis Personae B, Dusk, Isra, Regan
In Absentia	Memorial Day "Right now I don't know what the fuck we are. Arrogant. Mostly." Part of Future Past TP
Location <NYC> BoM Safehouse - Lower East Side
Tucked away off a little-used side street in the Lower East Side, sandwiched between a youth drop-in center and a taqueria, this narrow three-story townhouse has very little to catch the eye. Boarded-up windows, a door peeling its paint, shabby grubby brickface; from the outside it does not look like much. Inside someone has gone to great lengths to renovate the building into something more habitable. It isn't glamorous but it is comfortable, old furniture dragged in, the place generally swept clean. The first floor holds a large living room, a smaller dining room, a spacious kitchen, a half-bathroom. There are three bedrooms and a full bathroom on the second floor; the attic is just a large empty space crammed full of boxes with a window out to the large flat roof. The basement, much like the attic, consists of a lot of empty space. A bare concrete floor, no windows, occasional poles running up to the ceiling. A tiny half-bathroom down here, too. Not a whole lot else. The afternoon sun blazes down on the city, making good on the tradition that Memorial Day should mark an unofficial beginning to summer. Perhaps the seasonable weather has drawn people outside, leaving the safehouse quiet though not empty. The light, if not the weather, drives Isra /inside/. She wears a white cotton wrap dress so gauzy that it barely conceals the ocean blue skin underneath. Fine multichrome metallic spots decorate her entire body, concentrated along the lateral surfaces of her long limbs like the arms of some new and unknown galaxy. Her horns, talons, and the membranes of the massive wings--folding in behind her as she enters--dazzle the eyes with a solid expanse of the same rainbow chrome that dusts the rest of her body. Perhaps they dazzle even /her/ eyes, for she sports a pair of heavily tinted goggles, their lenses mirrored to match the horns to which their modified straps attach. Out of the sun, her posture eases somewhat, and she pushes the goggles up onto her forehead. She deposits a sturdy nylon shopping bag onto the kitchen counter with an ease that belies the weight of its contents--over a dozen glass bottles of cold fizzy drinks both soft and hard. Dusk has already been here, it seems. Not that he is /entirely/ in evidence at first -- or, well, he /is/, insofar as there is a large LUMP of wing bundled onto a couch. Dusted in a swirl of ocean blue on a metallic black background, the enormous wings folded over the rest of him like a blanket are currently all that can be seen of him. There's a faint stirring when Isra arrives, in that his silver-chromed talons twitch. Then return to folding into Lump. A small blue metal dragonfly hums its way over and alights on the lump-o-vampire, perching on one folded wingspar and settling there quietly. The dragonfly is soon followed by a small blue (very much not-metal) shark, clambering over the back of the couch, barefoot and in summery yellow pleated skirt, ribbed yellow tank, pink wristcuffs and small yellow and pink butterfly charms on a silver chain jangling around one anklet. B /also/ takes up a perch... /on/ Dusk. Clawed toes curling down lightly against thin wing membrane. Poke. Pooooke? Hir nostrils twitch as hir eyes follow Isra towards the kitchen. "... is there blackberry. Soda." Her voice is lightly hopeful. Isra, in the midst of transferring beverages to the refrigerator, sets aside a blackberry Izze. Then, folding the shopping bag neatly into itself and tucking it into the black mirrorwork satchel at her hip, she stalks into the living room and wraps the glimmering expanse of one wing around B. "I acquired every flavor of this that Mrs. Williams keeps in stock." This as she hands over the requested soda. Without needing to unwind her wing from the shark pup, she perches herself on an arm of the couch, reaching down to trail her taloned fingertips over Dusk's wing the way some damsel in an Romantic painting might idly stir her own reflection in the water. "I also brought hard cider." Then, after a pause, almost /reluctantly/. "And beer." The lump of wing seems unbothered by the new barnacles it is acquiring. There's a very faint shifting of muscles firming up underneath, a -- shoulder, maybe, or part of a back, tensing to provide a more secure perch for dragonfly and sharkpup alike. Then back into stillness. At least until Beer is mentioned. At this point Dusk's wings unfold, limbs stretching out (most likely to unceremoniously tip his cargo off of him) so that he can twist around and peer up at Isra. Stretch a hand out. Curl fingers. Beckon -- also hopefully. The big puppy eyes he would otherwise be giving are somewhat marred by sleepy only-half-awakeness and squinting blearily against the intrusive SUNLIGHT in the room. B bounces slightly where ze sits, nabbing the soda from Isra happily. "You're the best." She is just starting to twist its cap off when Dusk stirs; her happy bounce turns into a /squawk/ and a flail. It's a fairly good thing the cap has not actually been removed yet because the bottle of soda slips from her hand to fall down against a wing and roll to the corner of the couch. Hir arms flail outward, claws shredding into the back of the couch as /she/ tips downward, too, thumping back ultimately against Isra's legs and the arm of the couch. "Hrrrngh." A grumpy sort of complaint. "You're a terrible sofa." "I prioritize fewer sharp edges in my seats, personally." Regan sounds mildly amused as she slips in from outside. Just off work, evidently, judging by the dark scrubs she still wears and the ID still clipped to her shirt, feet shod in sensible black sneakers and hair pulled back into a ponytail. There's an iced coffee nearly empty in one hand, a faintly exhausted droop to her features. "But he's useful in all sorts of other respects." Isra scoops B up in the hollow of one wing, setting hir down on the (hopefully more stable) back of the sofa and returning the soda to hir. The other hand delivers a Stone IPA to Dusk's grabbyhands, the heavy thumbclaw of one wing dipping to pry off the cap in the process. "I shall refrain from commenting on my preferences with regard to his sharp edges." She does not seem particularly embarrassed, judging by the wry twist at the corner of her mouth. "Would you like a cold beverage?" This last to Regan, as she rises. 'I don't /usually/ get complaints.' This first part is lazily signed, one-handed as Dusk reaches for the beer. Eyes still blearily squinty-closed. They only start to creep back open as he takes his first swig and nestles up against Isra's legs, too, wing folding in along her side in another lumpy puddle of limb. "... 'least not from people inclined to be sitting on me." He shifts nearly as soon as he's settled, wing curling against B instead to let Isra back up. "It's not the pokey that I mind it's all the moving. Chairs are supposed to stay where you put them. I mean, if I wanted you like for a /steed/," B explains earnestly, easily letting herself be repositioned on the couch arm and tucking into Dusk's wing instead, "that'd be different." Ze curls a little closer in to Dusk when Regan approaches, eyes a little wider, cheeks a little darker and gills flapping just slightly open. "He's been," she says, hir voice faintly quieter and more hesitant than before. "Useful. For -- um." Her claws flick towards the dragonfly (which caught /itself/ when it toppled, lifting up to perch instead on the back of the couch) and then she swallows the rest of her words in a swig of soda. "I'm quite sure he has." A small smile touches Regan's mouth. She inclines her head in affirmation towards Isra. "Cider?" /She/ does not join the puddling on the couch, folding herself instead into an adjacent armchair and setting her shoulder bag down with a look of relief. "From what I have heard you have both been very useful." Isra nods and vanishes into the kitchen, the talons of her feet audibly clicking on the floor with each step. She returns with two Strongbow ciders and uncaps Regan's before handing it to her. Though she reclaims her seat on the arm of the sofa, she does not /puddle/ so much as perch, oddly graceful for a creature with limbs so long and numerous. One of her wings wraps lightly over both B and Dusk, the other mantles out in the other direction--perhaps for balance, though it also neatly blocks most of the sunlight that falls across the sofa. Her face remains impassive, though her tail sways slowly, its tip sweeping the floor with each pass. The hand not holding her own drink settles onto B's head. A low rumble growls up briefly in Dusk's chest, subsiding again as he pulls at his beer. "Useful." He eyes the dragonfly skeptically, fangs briefly baring as if snarling at /it/. This passes, too, into another gulp at his bottle. "Feel like there's hella far to go before we reach /useful/, still. Right now I don't know what the fuck we are. Arrogant. Mostly." There is a distinct perk to B's posture when Regan says she has been useful. A straightening of shoulders, a brightening of eyes. She butts her head up gently against Isra's talons, brow gaining a small furrow after Dusk's response. "Well. Useful or not, we've been busy. We were hoping you could -- help us turn it into. Useful. It's just -- what we learned --" Hir gills flutter faster, and she leans in against Isra, looking around the otherwise empty sitting room and then back to Regan. "Just could be dangerous. It makes it hard to know who to -- involve." "Given who was /on/ your mission, I take it others have been involved already?" Regan accepts her cider with a murmured thanks, lifting it for a long pull. "There's some sort of arrogance in everything we do, isn't there?" Her smile isn't particularly cheerful. "I feel like you need some hubris to ever think you can change the landscapes you're living in. Most people never do." Her elbow props on the armrest of the sofa, heel of her hand rubbing at a cheek. "...but most of us aren't most people, either." This is quieter, briefly distant before she shakes her head and looks back to the others. "Information is dangerous, a lot, in the wrong hands. From what you all have seen, not acting on it is probably even more dangerous." Her hand turns up, fingers curling in a small beckoning gesture. Isra opens her own cider and takes a delicate sip. "If defying the order of this world constitutes hubris, then I should count any such accusation a high compliment." Her talons scratch lightly against the spines on B's head. "We've little control over the discretion of the other people already involved, and no matter how well they intend, the information will eventually spread. Some of what you have discovered must needs inform a longer game, but act we must." She does not emphasize 'we' much, but any emphasis at all stands out in her habitually even intonation. "And soon." "Jax and Flicker were with us. No doubt their team at the school's gotta know by now --" Though here, Dusk frowns, uncertainly. "...though Jax has kind of been a fucking head case since we got back, and Flicker's vanished from the face of the goddamn earth. So. Maybe they don't know. I think they /should/ have a copy of this shit if they don't already, though. B could get it to the Professor easy enough." One thumbclaw twitches towards the dragonfly. "Pa's not a /head case/." B bristles underneath Isra's hand, claws stretching out a little longer as the spiny hair on hir head stands up just a bit straighter. "He's stressed. He's /worried/. He needs --" Hir teeth click against the glass lip of the Izze bottle. "... I don't know what he needs." This is much lower, glummer. "He destroyed the world," ze adds, after a silent stretch. Hir eyes lift upward to Regan, warily. "That's -- what we -- there was a bomb. Huge. Killed hundreds of thousands -- they blamed it on y... on the Brotherhood. And started putting everyone in camps. But it was Pa. There was a raid on the school and he got killed defending it and the explosion when he died --" A soft growl cuts her words off. Her teeth scrape the glass again. "It's all on there. The raid. The people who ordered it. Even found a few memos around the cover-up afterwards." From Regan there is silence here, too. She sips at her cider, eyes meeting B's for a long moment. Her fingers tighten around the neck of the bottle. "You have names, then?" she says, finally, quiet. "The people responsible." The claws tipping Isra's wing curl in, dimpling Dusk's skin where they make contact. "If Xavier does not have this information, he needs it." The tension in her muscles has become palpable to those in contact with her, at least, and the swaying of her tail grows fractionally more rapid. "Depending on how we approach this, it may make sense for us to collaborate with his people, little though I imagine he would agree." "We've got a few. String of politicians talking to some folks at Oscorp. -- Some Senator behind a lot of it. Same guy," Dusk says thoughtfully, "who was pushing the Sentinels through approval /now/, actually." His shoulder shivers beneath Isra's claws, but doesn't pull away. "If Flicker doesn't turn up for our labrat vigil tonight we'll make sure this gets to the school." B's brows pull together. "Is he /okay/?" she murmurs softly to Dusk. After this, though, there is a long stretch of quiet, except for the soft clicking of claws and teeth against the side of hir glass. "... but what are you going to do?" finally comes out, softly. "With all this." "/Really/." At Dusk's words a ghost of smile does dart across Regan's face, a dry amusement in her tone. "Well." She tips the neck of her bottle towards Isra in indication. "It may. Though I expect he'll have little stomach for just /removing/ some of the primary agents from play." Isra's brows knit very lightly over the discussion of Flicker's absence. The talon of her pinky finger traces fine trails in the condensation on her bottle, and comes away with a drop of water hanging from the sharp tip. "Removing some of the primary agents from play, most likely." This to B, echoing Regan's words. "Though we may not need to, in some cases. Certainly we should also look into technological countermeasures. As for Xavier, whether he wants the moral high ground or only plausible deniability, I doubt he wants to run afoul of our plans any more than we want to theirs." Dusk shrugs a shoulder, not really dismissive but uncertain. "He took Hive /with/ him." There's a distinct puzzled note to his voice on this, no doubt stemming from how much care the catatonic telepath has required. He pulls again from his beer and swallows slow, fangs pressing down against his lower lip. His mouth opens -- then closes again, silent. Finally: "You know I'll go where you need me." "But," B presses, fidgeting uncomfortably on her perch, "/which/ agents --" Hir gills flutter too quickly, for a moment, to allow for proper speech. When she speaks again her voice is breathier, a little hitched; this doesn't eliminate its tense edge. "It's just, people here have /already/ been threatening --" Another breath; it doesn't notably calm her. The claws on hir toes shred into the upholstering of the sofa's arm as they curl down. "If anybody, here or anywhere else, tries hurting my pa to fix any of this, I'll kill them." Regan doesn't immediately answer, lips compressing at B's reply. "People have been threatening your family? /Our/ people?" Her eyebrows arch upward. She, too, takes another slow pull at her drink. "There are a lot of paths to the future, B. I don't feel any need to rush blindly down one just because it seems the most --" She exhales, sharply. "Well-lit." "I trust that he has good cause--perhaps seeking to revive Hive." Isra's hand drops to B's gills. "The ones who persecute our people." Her tail sways faster. "The ones who have already begun to set the stage for genocide." Looking back up at Regan, however, her face remains placid. "B herself has had some trouble from this, as I understand." Dusk growls soft and low, flexing a wing out to curl it up around B. "Anette's been upset about what future-B did. Thinks killing /this/ B is totally acceptable because of it." Despite the growl, the voice he actually speaks with is quiet and even. His wing rubs gently against B's back. "We're family," he says to her quietly. "Not really looking to hurt your other family, either." His lips twitch upwards into a crooked grin. "... 'sides," he says to Regan, "I kind of like it better in the dark."