Logs:And It Will All Happen Again

And It Will All Happen Again
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Erik
In Absentia Jax, Regan	2022-05-09 But if it can give folks even a taste of what our world could be like, maybe more of them will fight to build that.
Location <BOM> Gardens - Ascension Island
Considerably reduced from what they must have been when this place was actually running at full capacity, there is nevertheless a hefty amount of garden space tucked away behind the main cabin of the compound. Somewhat haphazard in its organization, the rows of plants -- mostly vegetables, with some herbs lining the borders -- seem to be chosen somewhat at whim. Despite the disorganized mishmash of crop selection, the ground seems well-tended, fielding the occupants a decent cache of produce three seasons out of the year. To one side, a fenced-in area with a raised coop houses chickens, often noisily squawking throughout the day. The sun has long since set over the island, a brisk chill replacing the mildness of the day. It's quiet out here -- there's still a light on in the main cabin, perhaps some insomniac Brother grabbing a late night snack or watching television. The illumination from the windows only barely spills out into the garden, cutting a swath of light across some of the thriving herbs. Dusk (looking Aggressively Normal in jeans, a soft blue-and-grey striped long-sleeve tee that sits snug around his wings, Vans sneakers) doesn't seem to mind the darkness at all; out of range of the light he's just a dark figure perched on one of the fence posts, his wings tucked in tight against his back and an occasional green flash of eyeshine glinting when he looks down at the phone in his hand. There's a joint in his other hand, held loosely, and he sets the phone on his knee briefly in order to light it, its distinct acrid scent carried off soon enough in the breeze. “May I join you, brother?” Erik’s approach is silent — today the stuttering return of his powers has given him back the gift of flight, which he has been using exclusively for transportation. This is probably, for most people on the island, a vast improvement on the fluctuating magnetic fields occasionally upending them from metal chairs or shorting out their devices. Erik seems to have floated straight out of bed, into his maroon satin dressing gown and slippers, and out into the garden without a single step onto the island’s soil. He’s not actually waiting for an answer; he’s removing a pack of Parliament and a heavy metal lighter from his pocket as he settles next to Dusk, not seated on the fence itself but hovering such that the two mutants’ heads are level with each other. He’s working a cigarette out of the pack when he says, voice mild — “I’m told I have you to thank for instigating my rescue. It seems I owe you a debt of gratitude.” Dusk's hand drops protectively over his phone, as if this meagre barrier will magically protect the device against any sudden electromagnetic surge. His wing gestures invitingly to the fence beside him, though, whatever his concerns. He's staring in some curiosity at Erik's hovering approach, a small smile with just a glint of fang pulling at his lips. "Oh -- oh." Here he flushes, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his neck. "Well, I had a friend on the..." This just trails off momentarily, his thumb brushing restlessly at the end of his joint. "You don't owe me anything. Can't leave family sitting in a cage. Besides, I'm pretty sure you've been fighting for us since way before I was even a gleam in my parents' eyes, so --" When he shrugs the motion comes more through his wings than his shoulders. The words family and parents stir something in Erik, betrayed only by a brief pause as he thumbs open the cigarette carton. “Mm. Still. If not owed, then let my thanks be a present — a freely given favour to redeem at your leisure. Let none call Magneto unappreciative.” He lights up — the flame briefly illuminates the artificial red of his hair, starting now to fade but still bright with Manic Panic. Curiously -- “How old are you? It becomes hard to tell, with our kind, and I have missed so many years of getting to know my siblings here.” "Well. That's a favor I'm definitely not gonna turn down." Dusk lifts his joint for another puff, eying Erik's cigarette briefly but still ultimately offering up the weed with a questioning lift of brows. "Uh --" The question evidently requires some quick mental calculation. "Twenty-nine," he ventures, only half confidently. "Regan brought me in -- not so long after you went up." He hesitates, shifting slightly on his fence post to eye Erik thoughtfully. "There's gotta be so much of our history you've seen. So many of us show up knowing like -- nothing about our people, you know?" “Regan chose, as far as I can tell, exceptionally wisely.” Erik dips his head and takes the joint, awkwardly holding the cigarette in his left hand while he takes a hit. Passes back the joint as he holds in the smoke, looking at Dusk with an appraising eye and a tightening of his jaw. “You are too skinny for that age. We will work on this — I will not see my brothers starve.” Erik tone is Very Firm on this, a flash of anger in his eyes when he turns to look over the gardens. “In some ways, that is a good thing. I have seen much of our history because we have so little, and too much of it is pain and struggle.” He brings the cigarette back to his lips and pulls. Breathes out, slow, the breeze whipping away the smoke. “I do not relish the idea of our history becoming a fable, like so many other struggles become.” "I don't -- don't eat often," Dusk admits, just a little abashed with the slight dip of his head, slight tightening of his wings behind him, slight self-conscious swipe of his tongue across his fangs. He eases on his next slow hit, eyes half-closing as he exhales the smoke. "Too much of it," he agrees, his large thumbclaws twitching atop his wings. "I'd say it's important to know if we don't want to repeat it, but I think society's determined to repeat it for us. I feel like..." He hesitates over his words, fingers drumming lightly against the fence. "People are less likely to let history become myth so long as we're actively fighting just to survive, you know?" The you know seems more like an earnest question than a verbal tic, Dusk searching Erik's face as he speaks. "People keep passing stories down because these things are still happening. But I worry about what it means to be a people that define ourselves primarily through our oppression." “We will fix that,” Erik repeats, firm — if the fangs trouble him there is no outward sign of it. His gaze follows the smoke, both his and Dusk’s, expression vaguely melancholy. “I do not know that, no. History need not be transformed to myth to still be a blindfold upon our work.” Erik frowns, bringing the cigarette to his lips. “It can breed complacency, if we are not careful, that tempting instinct to compare the current struggle to the past.” Erik’s lips press together around the cigarette. Holds the rest of the carton out to Dusk. “Down the path of perpetual victimhood lies the death of culture and the death of resistance. And yet.” Sucks in, holds. Breaths out. “We are the future of life on this planet. We should have a history of equal magnitude to pass down. Not persecution after persecution.” Dusk slips a cigarette from the pack, offering the joint back in trade before he lights the cigarette. "Yes!" He's gesturing with some excitement to Erik at his statements. "There are still way too many of us who don't have a sense of culture -- or resistance -- if they aren't being actively targeted and then their whole idea of being a mutant centers around that. But there's so much..." He shakes his head, takes a long drag of the smoke. "So much more happening. Our joys have to be part of that story, too." His smile is a little quicker, a little easier, not bothering this time to obscure the fangs. "You been up by Ion's Freaktown yet?" Erik takes another puff off the joint, the corners of his eyes crinkling at Dusk’s animation, though it does not quite become a smile. “There is so much more,” he echoes, “and so much more still to come. We are a species of gods. It will not be long before we carve out histories worthy of our people.” There’s a bright flare of intensity in Erik’s eyes — or maybe its just a reflection of the bright end of the joint when he passes it back. “Yes. It was worth the mess of the hair dye to see it -- to see them. Building. Being. It made me feel young again, to walk among them all. Maybe this time...” Erik shakes his head, small, and takes another drag off his cigarette. Dusk's head tilts slightly at the repetition of gods, but it doesn't diminish his smile. "Red looks good on you." His gaze flickers over Erik, then continues up to the sky through his next drag of cigarette. "This time?" His brows quirk up, curious. "We on some Cylon all this has happened before ish?" Erik's amused huff comes with a sidelong glance with twinkling eyes, a growing half smile. "I don't know from Cylon," he remarks, the foreign-to-him word clumsy on his tongue, "but that line -- Peter Pan, yes? -- is about a boy having the same dreamlike adventure, generation to generation. You think no one has dreamed of a mutant homeland before?" Erik is growing more agitated, raises the cigarette to his lips but stops short of actually taking a drag. "It was foolish, naive dreaming then. It is naive dreaming now. At least this time they cannot bomb you without hurting their own -- but will that stop them?" Now he pulls, long, hard, slow. "Battlestar Galactica, the Cylons are a group of robots waging war on humanity. It's great if you like, spaceships and robots and uh --" Dusk frowns, briefly reconsidering his initial excited assessment of great, "-- war and societal collapse and existential questions about personhood. Actually, it's depressing as hell." He looks a touch sheepish after this sidetrack. "Oh, I think there's not an oppressed people on this earth who haven't dreamed of their own self-determination. Fought for it, died for it. Just not a lot of people really talk about the olden --" He glances back to Erik, biting briefly at his lip. "-- I mean the days when there weren't as many of us." He's quieter when he continues: "I don't think any of us think Riverdale is going to last. But if it can give folks even a taste of what our world could be like, maybe more of them will fight to build that." “I do love to wage war on humanity.” It comes so dry, so deadpan, so serious, only the curl of Erik’s lip indicating the possibility this is a joke. Erik’s next exhale is long, not looking back at Dusk until it seems there is no air left in his lungs. “You don’t think it will last. I applaud your pragmatism and mourn the future I could not give you.” The bitter edge in his tone bleeds into something more pained. “Less foolish than we were — we truly thought it would be forever.” He pauses there, eyes drifting to Dusk to contemplate him a long moment. “Hm. You want stories? There are better ones, ones that don’t end so early or so terribly, but I have stories. Maybe a younger ear can hear the joy in them, where I cannot.” Dusk's lips twitch at the first comment, a low rumble briefly purring in his chest that all but fades away when he speaks. "We took a bunch of bougie homes and turned their gated community into a mutant commune, it's gotta be just a matter of time before the tanks roll in. But there's a lot of future ahead of us." Dusk's expression softens as he watches Erik. His wings curl in tighter against his shoulders. "Sir, I'd love to hear your stories. Gotten pretty good at finding joy where I can." “Hm.” Erik’s eyes meet Dusk’s. “If there is ‘a lot of future’, perhaps there will be time for all of the stories. Over a meal, or three.” The glow at the end of his cigarette has disappeared, and though Erik has the lighter in one hand he makes no move to rekindle it. Pulls his legs up under him, so that he’s seated crosslegged in the air. “This one, to start — once, there was an island, awash with radiation. The atomic bomb ruined it — in a stroke of poetic justice, one of ours pulled the poison from the land and gave the children of the atom a home." Erik's expression has gone far, far away. "End it there, and it is a happy story." Dusk's claws twitch once more, the rumble in his chest a little bit rougher at the mention of meals. He swivels on his fencepost, facing Erik properly now, his wings reflexively mantling further out to keep his balance. Where Erik's expression has gone distant his is rapt and present, cigarette temporarily forgotten where it burns between his fingers. "But it doesn't end there." Less a question and more a curious prompt. “No, it does not.” Erik’s voice is tight, strained. “It ends in bombs and death. But — “ The lighter in his hand flicks open, then closed, seemingly its own accord before Erik tucks it back into his pocket. “— There was time in between. We worked the earth, we made homes and families.” His empty hand reaches out to Dusk as Erik unfolds, standing again in the air but floating up just a little higher. “You are not sleeping tonight, yes? Neither am I.” He gestures with the cigarette towards his cabin, just off the far end of the gardens. “Come see what is left -- my artifacts of a bygone era.” "I kinda figured that was always what life is," Dusk freely admits with an oddly sanguine millennial fatalism, "carving out homes and love where you can on a burning planet. I'm sorry. For your family." He tucks his phone and his own lighter away, stubs out the butt of his spent cigarette carefully. There's a hesitation before he reaches for Erik's outstretched hand to pull himself up, a deliberate care in his bony grip. "Yeah, definitely. I got way too much dreaming to do to waste the night on sleep."