Logs:Of Fortitude and Fighting (Or, Who Fears Death)

Of Fortitude and Fighting (Or, Who Fears Death)
cns: discussion of imprisonment, violence, and The Holocaust, specific discussion of the Revolt at Crematorium IV and Nazi response.
Dramatis Personae Erik, Kavalam	2023-07-15 "Sometimes, in this life, you get a moment when everything lines up."
Location <XAV> Roof - Xs Third Floor
The view from up here is phenomenal, a panorama of the expansive Xavier's grounds, forest and lake and rocky cliffs alike. Even without the view outwards, the rooftop itself holds its own delights, in the form of the tiny jewel of a flower garden tucked away up here, tended by one of the school's teachers. From the edge of the roof, with a veeery careful jump, it looks like it just might be possible to reach the treehouse in the old oak tree. The view up here also, if you are looking for it, offers the best sightline to the weather-vane situated on one of the mansion's tourelles. Currently, though, there is no weather-vane up there. It is instead floating much closer to the roof, rotating as Erik inspects it. He is dressed for the training that has just broken for the day several floors below -- tactical pants, dark longsleeved shirt, a steel chain tucked underneath the collar, steel link bracelets around each wrist, gold band on his right ring finger. There's a newer weather-vane in pieces below him, small pieces gathered in his upturned helmet -- with a frown, Erik snaps off a piece of old iron that displeases him, floating up a newer piece to replace it. Was Erik up here alone? Probably it's seemed so, but now one of the mansions many stray teenagers splices himself -- not into view, exactly, so much as awareness like finally being able to focus on something that's been in peripheral vision all along. Kavalam is sitting perched on the edge of the garden bed and watching Erik with a very solemn attentiveness, elbows rested on his knees, several freshly-healing scars still raw and pink where they've been scraped down one arm, the faintest remnants of fading bruising darkening one eyelid. "Did you live here, Uncle?" This question comes quiet but clear, once he has asserted his presence well enough to be noticed, thick-heavy South Indian accent in his words. The weather-vane spins, pointed tip facing not towards Erik but at Kavalam at the interruption. Erik's reaction in his own body is smoother, gaze sliding from the metal to the teen with only a brief furrow of brow. The frown is more reflexive at Uncle, but no correction comes. "Many mutants have lived here, over the years." Not exactly an answer. Erik spins the weather vane back to face him, frown growing deeper as he takes in the scars, the bruising. "For some generations now, Xavier's home has been a safe haven for our kind. I hope this --" the recently removed bar lifts up, gesturing lightly to Kavalam's arm, "-- was not received here." Kavalam's gives a side-to side wobble of his head. "Many," he agrees easily. "But most who are turning up to head down to the basement, they don't make the rounds when the training is over to tidy-up the place, no? Fix what's gone wrong." A small frown, thoughtful. "Notice what's gone wrong." A little self-consciously, his arm drops, tucking the scraped-healing skin behind his thighs. "Who here do you think would do this?" "Children can be cruel. Children with power, more so. And every so often --" Erik's face sours for a fraction of an instant, "-- the gates let in dangerous men who would do them harm. You've been following me." Not a question, though some curiosity bleeds in. "I had not noticed. Invisibility? Or some other gift?" A very short-hard huff flares Kavalam's nose at gift. His head wobbles again, a little less committed, this time. "I am very hard to notice. Not invisible. A camera will see. Nobody will pay it good mind, though." His eyes have remained very steadily scrutinizing on Erik's face. "Are you going to Ohio, with them?" "Fascinating." No hint of irony in Erik's tone -- maybe Kavalam, with the experience of so many versions of this conversation under his belt, can see the tell-tale gleam of someone cycling through the possibilities (and likely only the convenient ones) of such a power. It does not stay, though, in the face of the second question. The weathervane settles gently on the ground. "It remains to be seen. They want no enemy blood spilled." The hard set of Erik's jaw tells easily what he thinks of that. "This is not how I like to fight when my people are kept in cages." "Hard to see when I am here, hard to remember when I go. It --" Kavalam shrugs a shoulder with, likely, not quite as much nonchalance as he is affecting in his tone. Unconsciously, his fingers flutter back to the healing side of his arm, and his eyes narrow hard. "I would like to see them all bleed," he says first, fiercer and sharper, but this continues softer on into: "-- but the people in the cages, they would bleed the most, once the guards got very frightened." Erik lets out a long breath, eyes tracking to the teenager's injured arm again. "How old are you?" This question is quieter, almost-but-not-quite gentler, as Erik goes to sit on the edge of the flower bed on Kavalam's right side. "I believe," he says, slowly, "it matters very little whether the enemy is frightened of death or not. They will always find a reason to justify their retaliation. If I had let that fear hold me back any longer, when I was caged..." he shakes his head, once. "A long time ago, I did nothing, to try to save my people from retaliation. They all died anyway." "I --" Kavalam's brows furrow at the question of his age, and his first answer is an uncertain, "-- two thousand and five?" that only after a quick calculation resolves into a more confident: "Eighteen." And then, quieter: "... almost." His fingers curl against his knees, and he sits up straighter when Erik sits down next to him, head lifting a little higher -- does this make him look any older? Probably a little bit the opposite, with the effort he's putting into it. "When I was there, I --" But he's tipping his chin up, actually looking at Erik, and whatever he was going to say here trails off. "... are you frightened of death, Unc.. sir?" "Eighteen," repeats Erik. The amendment to his arithmetic comes only when Kavalam trails off. "-- Seventeen, and you --" He's not looking at the scarring this time, only briefly looking at the bruises around Kavalam's eye, "-- you fought your way out. Like I did." His voice is low, respect and rage spun together into a somehow steady tone. The question gives him pause, though his answer, when it comes, is heavy with certainty that could not have come from such short contemplation. "Not my own. Death has walked beside me too long to fear it." "The others they all fought," Kavalam says with just a touch of defensiveness, just a touch of pride. Less certain: "Probably -- probably not like you did. My -- my power, it just. Is easier to --" His mouth presses into a hard line. "But I had to leave them. To get the help. I didn't..." When he trails off this time it's shakier, the strong squaring of his shoulders deflating. He nods slowly, his hands fingers pressing hard as they twine together. "You fought. They fought. I sneaked. And now they are still in there. I have sometimes watched your trainings. They don't know -- the chaos that will come." "If they fought like we did, they would be dead." There is no pride or one-up-manship in Erik's voice or the faraway look in his blue eyes. "Two hundred of us did not even make it out of the camp. Two hundred and fifty of us they rounded up and burned in a barn in the days after. Two hundred more remained there, after, when they began the gassing again two days later." At his hand, the gold ring ever so slowly works its way off his finger and into his palm, where his fist curls tight around it. "There is no shame in sneaking. I fought, yes, but we snuck, too, and ran, for as long and far as we could. You had to leave them," Erik repeats, firm, "and you did well in doing so." Kavalam swallows hard, his face going a shade paler as Erik speaks. "Oh -- oh." His nod is slow, his eyes wider. His gaze lowers to the ring in Erik's palm, dropping back to his own hands when Erik's fist closes. For a time he is silent. "My friends will have -- a lot more help," he says slow and uncertain. And then, more certain: "I have found them a lot of help." "You have." Erik's left hands lifts to settle -- gently -- on Kavalam's shoulder. "Sometimes, in this life, you get a moment when everything lines up. Where everything is possible. When suddenly, you can make things happen." There is a recitative quality to his words, as if Erik is quoting from a book that he and only he had read. "Downstairs -- you made this happen. When your friends come home -- you will have made that happen. Feel no guilt for how you made it." Kavalam's shoulder is a little unsteady at first under Erik's touch, but with a few deep breaths he has squared it again. "We," he's sitting a little taller once more, buoyed perhaps by the thought of who he is at least spiritually working beside, here, "will all be making it happen, no?" His smile may be a little forced, but the hope behind it is not: "Please bring them home." Erik's jaw sets, firm, hand squeezing lightly around Kavalam's shoulder. "{God help us if we take that moment,}" is low, in Yiddish, for all Kavalam might know it is some kind of blessing. "{God forgive us if we do not.}" When he returns to English, his voice is firmer, though whether he is responding to the question or the request is unclear. Still, there is steely determination in his eyes and voice, power and confidence in his declaration: "We will."