ArchivedLogs:No Plans

No Plans
Dramatis Personae Anette, Ion, Frittata
In Absentia	2015-08-08 "I just don't...understand why anyone would put themselves through that willingly."
Location <BOM> Compound Grounds - Ascension Island
In some places, reaching the main grounds of this island takes a precarious scramble up from the rocky-craggy shore; in some places, just a short hike away from the beach. Once an old homestead, most of the 28 acres of property are taken up with forest, a dark thick sprawl of greenery through which a small stream winds crookedly. Under its shady canopy, myriad buildings are tucked away, an eclectic mix of sheds and tiny sturdy log cabins that give the area a rustic feel. Centrally, a wide clearing has been cut out of the trees. A large sweep of lawn has had a metal swingset -- two swings to either side of a small trapeze bar -- set up to one side. The lawn leads up to a cabin bigger than the others, a squat one-story building. Long and low, its wide front porch and cheerfully-painted yellow and pink shutters lend the building a welcoming air. There's music coming from the woods, right now. The strum of a guitar, the deep gravelly bass of a voice singing -- quite /well/, too -- in a rumbly Spanish tune. A lot of enthusiasm, and thankfully in /this/ (unlike so many other of his chosen pursuits) Ion at least has the skill to match. Out among the forest on the islands grounds, he has taken up a perch /in/ the lowest branches of one purple-leaved plum tree. The tree stands opposite his cabin -- singed and scorched and blacked, it is very readily identifiable as the one he shares with Kay. There's a hanging -- chair? Swing? Cradle? that has been hung from the branch he sits on, low to the ground and currently home to a half-asleep gargoyle-bat-vampire infant, quietly making soft clicky-noises to themselves as Ion sings. The Monsterling's eyes are mostly closed, their wings curled around a large hedgehog plushie that occasionally they chew on before going back to drowsing. It's been a very long time since Anette's had a chance to spread her wings, one of the drawbacks to living in the city. So it's no wonder, away from prying human eyes that she's currently airbourne. There's no real purpose or reason to it, just for the general enjoyment of freedom. As she spins and twirls and floats through the air high above the trees, she also keeps her eyes to the ground keeping tabs on what's below her. It's here she hears Ion's music and singing and, tucking her wings in slightly, she soars down to the tree he's perched in. Circling the tree on her way down, she lands just below him and looks up, tucking her wings in. "Not bad," she says. The infant's bulbous green eyes crack open again, peering out towards Anette. The clicking resumes, faster than before. One needle-taloned wing flails out vaguely in Anette's direction, then flops back to cover up their soft hedgehog toy. The wide stretch of their mouth could be a yawn, or an attempt at a chomp; either way, when the baby's mouth closes, it is over the head of the toy. Nom. Ion's strumming stops, his fingers curled loosely around the neck of the guitar. He looks downward towards Anette with a warm bright grin. "Ey-o, Lechuza, how's the skies today eh?" His head tips back against the tree trunk, eyes flicking up through the leaves. Then back down. "Thanks. You like, huh? The Gremlin, 'e been a fussy. Like the guitar, though. Less cranky. Maybe one day they sleep again. /One/ day." He doesn't sound /particularly/ hopeful, though he sounds more amused than cranky himself at the evidently sleep-less infant. Anette turns her head and curiously watches the infant...monster...thing as he seems interested in her. She furrows her eyebrows slightly before turning back to Ion. "Sorry, did you say Gremlin?" she asks, side glancing back to the thing as if she doesn't quite trust it. "Sky's beautiful as usual. But seriously, what is that?" Apparently she really won't let this go. "You ain't never met my dragon?" Ion's eyes widen, huge and /shocked/. "Woah-woah-/woah/." Guitar still held in one hand, he swings himself easily down from the low branch to drop to the ground with a soft thump of bare feet on soft earth. "Me and Kay, we training up this dragon. Tiniest monster on the island. Gonna be fierce one day though, huh?" He drops his hand into the swinging baby-chair, rubbing a calloused finger gently against the infant's cheek. The clicking noise resumes, though this time it sounds closer to a soft purr. "This my kid, yo." Anette steps back and allows Ion to introduce her to the dragon-thing, still staring in disbelief. "You're...serious." She rubs the back of her head with her hand. "I mean...I guess he's kinda cute, in a way. He's your kid? As in...your kid?" She makes a slight choking sound, trying to take in the strange creature in. "Does he at least have a name?" Ion rests his guitar against the side of the tree. He lifts his hand, fingers raising in -- well, it isn't /actually/ the boy scout salute. Kind of close. His fingers are off. SOMEONE was never a Boy Scout, who here is surprised. "Fuckin' serious, hell yeah. This tiny-dragon got /all/ the names, for sure. Omelette, Frittata, Egg, Scramble, Benedict." He rests a hand on the edge of the chair, gently swinging it to rock the infant inside. "Isra and Dusk, they /made/ the kid," which might explain why they look like a vampire-gargoyle-bat, "but me and Kay, we raising them." Anette ah's softly at the parentage. "That makes a lot ofsense. Wait..." she turns her head and narrows her eyes to Ion. "Omelette? Frittata? You named the poor thing after eggs?" She turns back to the kid and waggles her wings playfully while she shaking her head. "Poor kid, gonna need so much therapy when he's older." However, in the midst of warming up to the kid, she suddenly freezes and a look of...something, crosses her face. Something not good, fear or dread maybe. She quickly tucks her wings in and straightens herself, turning away from the gremlin to face Ion properly. "Well, you and Kay seem to be doing an alright job." "Well they born in a egg, yeah? Big one. Isra lay." Ion holds his hands up to indicage the size of the Very Large Egg. "Why they need therapy, gonna be the /best/ damn monster --" He breaks off, still rocking the chair steadily, motion kind of habitual with his attention on Anette. His brows lift, head cocking as the woman's expression shifts. "Ey, hermosa, you okay there?" "Me? Oh, fine, yeah. Just reminded me of...things. Egg? Did you say egg?" Anette briefly glances towards the infant as if trying to picture it breaking out of an egg. "Did it really hatch out of an egg? How does...how does that even happen?" she asks. "{I don't know.} Like a fucking /lizard/, I guess. Lay a thing. Shell crack open. Bam, /dragon/." Ion gestures to the infant in their swinging chair, with a /flourish/. "Pretty fucking badass, huh? Tiny-monster, it drink a blood like s'dad." Shrug. "One day they be a terror. Now-day, I can't get them to eat no dinner never. I tell you, be a parent, it ain't nothing but all-day-worry, huh? Well, and all-day-awesome." "Huh. Never thought I'd meet anyone hatched from an egg. Guess anything's possible these days." Anette turns her head slightly towards the infant and can't help but smile softly as it swings. "Oh, he's gonna be an outright terror when he's older. Good Brotherhood member, too. It drinks blood? That's got to be fun trying to feed him. Though I can't imagine he drinks that much this young." As Ion goes on about parents worrying, she noticably stiffens. "Right. Worrying. Good thing I've no plan to be a parent then," she says, forcing a smile. "Gonna be good as fuck. Got good examples all round, huh? Kay, he the goddamn /fiercest/. Learn to fly from s'mom and dad. Grow up not taking /nobody's/ shit. -- We feed him," Ion explains brightly, bouncing on his toes, "rabbits from out those hutchs? In the gardens." The Gremlin is opening their mouth again, a large fangy yawn that ends with more jawing on the plushy -- though they soon leave it aside to flail their wings upward in Ion and Anette's directions, instead, clicking growing faster when they fail to reach. "No plan soon or no plans /never/? I didn't have no plans, neither. Just /happened/, right? Kid got borned. Needed a home. Sometimes, these things a surprise? Think that's how kids done happen since long as there been people." "No plans never. I would be a horrible parent. I can't even..." Anette cuts herself off from saying too much, taking a deep breath through her nose before speaking againt. "Rabbits, well, if their blood tastes as good as the meat, the kid's doing pretty well then." She watches as the kid tries to reach towards her with its wings and she can't resist holding out a hand and gently stroking the tiny wing. "Me, I'm the /picture/ of responsible." Ion grins huge and bright at this. "Best parent ever, that's," he sounds kind of amused, "what ever-body they say when they think about me." One shoulder shrugs. "I figure, you keep them feed, you give them love, is a good start in life, huh?" The tiny batlike wing hooks back up, curling out against Anette's hand with a very light thwap. Trying to hook against her hand -- kind of ineffectually -- just as ineffectually attempting to curl clawed tip around it and pull her closer. Hookhookhook. The infant lacks the coordination to actually grip, though. Mostly, this just results in continued flailing. "Oh, I don't doubt that. I'm sure you're father of the year," Anette says, playing with the kid's wing and tickling it as it tries to hook her hand. "Ah, there's...a little more to keeping them fed and loved, especially when you're a mutant in a human world." Anette falls silent a moment, pressing her lips together as if contemplating whether to continue or not. "I was a mother, briefly. Sort of." Ion lifts a hand, up over his head to indicate something -- high. "Ey-ah. That up there, yeah? High-up. My list. Of worry, right? The monsterling, 'e grow up a freak in this world. S'why we teach 'm, be fierce as all hell. Don't let nobody give 'm no shit, right?" Though there's a slightly off-kilter slant to his usual easy grin as he looks down at the gargoyle-child in the swing. The smile dims entirely when he looks back up at Anette. "You-huh? Lo siento, hermana, I didn't know. That's a -- what happen?" Anette shrugs slightly and offers an easy smile, even if it looks a bit strained. "That whole future dreams mess. Ended up having a kid in the future. Didn't work out so well, we were captured by Sentinels and sent to different camps. Ended up organizing a raid to rescue him, Dusk helped actually. I guess we were technically successful but in the end I was killed..." Anette looks on the verge of tears and she takes a deep, shaky breath to calm herself. "I've just...I've never felt that way about anything, anyone before. I spent months agonizing over my son, both in dreams and outside of. I just don't...understand why anyone would put themselves through that willingly." "Awshit. /That/ shit." Ion grimaces at the mention of the future. "Man, fuck that future, yo, those goddamn murder bots killed me so dead when we busted you-all from that shithole camp. -- Dusk, though, even in the future he solid, huh?" The worry in his expression hasn't faded when he looks down at Egg, though. His cheeks puff out; he expels a short breath, finally taking a step forward to curl a (kind of staticky) arm around Anette. "You don't want to, you don't got to, hermana. That future, is only one option. You still you, here. You still /make/ your own future. You got a family here and now, we ain't gonna let all that shit happen on you." "Yeah, I know, that future was rough on everyone," Anette says, hanging her head slightly. "But it...it felt real. I still feel like I lost my son. I still feel like I died saving him. Even if he technically wasn't real, he still felt real. I still have nightmares. I can't sleep at night." She does warm up a bit as Ion offers her a hug, smiling softly as she leans into him. "Yeah, Dusk is still solid in the future." Ion's arm curls a little tighter around Anette, his chin resting down on the top of her head when her head hangs. "Think it /was/ real. Some ways real, I don't fucking know. Was fucked /up/, whatever it was. But makes sense, to be upset. It just -- we don't gotta live it, you know?" His palm rubs slowly between her wings. "Those fucking bots, Oscorp they already been putting them on the ambulances out here. It all upset you that much, you want to go out some time, smash the shit outta some them?" Anette reaches up to subtley wipe a few tears from her face as Ion holds her closer. "Yeah, it is sort of in this weird limbo of reality. And I know we don't have to live it, but that doesn't help much when I already have." She clear her throat and straightens herself, slowly regaining her composure. "Smashing the shit out of something would be fantastic." "{Excellent.} Then we smash. Not tonight, though. Tonight, I got this monsterling, huh?" Ion squeezes Anette a moment longer, then drops one of his arms so that he can untuck the cradle from its ropes where it hangs on the tree. The other arm stays slung loosely around her shoulders. "Tonight maybe we just have some goddamn booze. Later, smashing." "Right. Smashing and child sitting don't mix I hear. But definitely smashing. Lots of smashing." Anette glances towards the child as Ion removes the cradle, wiggling her fingers playfully. "Oh god booze sounds fantastic." "You maybe can grab for me my girl?" Ion's hands are full of infant, now -- he's tipping his head towards his /guitar/, left, still, where he set it carefully against the tree trunk. He presses a light kiss to Anette's temple, offers another quick squeeze before releasing her with a quick grin, a nod towards his cabin. "I got you covered. We got /so/ damn much booze. Can steal us the big-ass TV up in the lodge, have a fine Saturday night."