Logs:Past is Prologue

Past is Prologue
Dramatis Personae Matt, Mirror
In Absentia Jax, Lucien, Elie, Charles	2024-03-30 "Luci wielded it well and so can I, in my own fashion." (part of lean in.)
Location <NYC> Le Carrefour, Le Bonne Entente - Astoria, Queens
Above the bustle of the clerestory restaurant, tucked at the base of the bell tower, this indoor garden and library is out of the way and easily overlooked, sure to become a favored "hidden gem" of travel guides. Low bookshelves full of mythology, fairy tales, and folklore ring the central elevator shaft and the stairway spiraling around it like an easily navigable labyrinth. Beyond these are plants in a variety of tastefully whimsical containers, each with its own engraved plaque giving the common name, the scientific name, and their significance to various traditional stories and practices. The walls have been done away with so that the room extends beyond the doric columns into a surreal rooftop garden enclosed with glass stretching between the tower's massive buttresses. The arrangement of plantlife becomes less formal as one moves out into the four arms of the conservatory, visible containers giving way to beds and terraces and eventually landscapes carefully cultivated to look wild. There is plentiful seating scattered along the paths and just off of them, from proper benches to picturesque logs to surprisingly comfortable boulders. By day, myriad butterflies dance amongst the enchanted vegetation, and likewise moths by night. A shallow stream weaves throughout, feeding ponds that host plants of their own alongside fish, frogs, and turtles. Wandering the outer edges of the conservatory, one could almost feel lost in a mystical forest but for the stunning views of the cityscape beyond the glass. Matt is not the one best known for hanging around at the crossroads with a dog or two or three in readiness for serendipitous encounters, but certainly it's not unheard-of to find other Tessiers lurking in this fairy wood. Though not quite at the eastern scenic overlook, he probably has an excellent view where he's reclining on a sturdy bough supported by the sturdy prop roots of a banyan skillfully excised from its mother tree in a very different sort of conservatory. He's in a green-and-silver floral scrollwork vest over a lilac dress shirt, gray slacks, and black dress boots embossed in more subtle floral scrollwork. There's a slim silver thermos tucked in the curve of the same arm with which he's cradling a book of Near-Eastern fairytales beautifully hardbound in teal cloth with silver leaf text and arabesque flourishes. There's a round old beagle dozing at the foot of the tree, and a sleek black-and-tan shepherd mutt roaming nearby, occasionally wandering back in hopes of tempting her companion to play. Matt's visitor can be felt before they are seen, a fierce pulse of energy that strains at the bounds of its unassuming container. Jax is in faded old overalls liberally splattered with paint and strapped only on one shoulder, a cheerful yellow tee shirt beneath that reads LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE over the smiling pigtailed children's book character. He ambles nearer, dropping a hand to scratch between Flèche's ears as he passes. "You gonna take over?" he's asking without preamble. "Sit on up here of a night. Bargain for people's souls?" Matt doesn't immediately look up from his reading as Jax approaches, but by the time his friend actually speaks he's closing the book and turning aside to dangle one leg down. "Mm. I haven't much use for souls," he hedges, his smile small and fey and mischievous. "But a crossroads is a place for all sorts of connections and I'm looking to branch out." He pats the bough he's sitting on and leans forward to be sure he won't land on Obie before dropping down. "I've always relied too much on him -- a lot of people did, of course, he made it easy -- and told myself it was because he so loved being of use and I loved him so." He pops the cap on his thermos and takes a long, slow gulp that might conceal much, but not his white-knuckled grip. "Maybe if I'd taken over long ago, it wouldn't have come to this." "Not even mine, I'm hurt." Jax tilts his head to one side, and the quirk of his brows is mischievous as well, accentuated momentarily by a sprouting of long backswept black horns and a spaded red tail curling behind him. "Taken over what, 'zaktly --" The horns and tail are detaching themselves to float over and reattach to Matt, instead, "-- if y'ain't interested in that particular market." He's hopping up when Matt drops down, though he doesn't take a seat, hooking one arm against an adjacent root and perching on tiptoes where Matt had been sitting. "I'on think I quite follow. You sayin' he -- what, done too much cooking for you an' it drove him to drugs?" His brows scrunch. "More drugs?" Matt looks thoughtful. "Oh, taking over while he was alive would have been a very different proposition, and I don't mean about the menu planning. Or the drugs." He sinks down to scritch behind Obie's ears. "You know very well he was up to a lot more than he let on, and I think leaving him to decide what to get up to was a mistake, after all. But that doesn't matter now." He straightens up and leans against the trunk, head lolling back to look up. "I trade more in hearts than souls, but for yours, I can make an exception," he allows magnanimously, fixing Jax with bright steady green eyes. "So tell me: what is it you desire?" Jax's laugh is soft and sad; the plants around them shiver in time with the sound and grow just a touch more muted in their colors. "Oh, my heart ain't on offer, honey-honey. Well, not to you nohow and anyway 'less you hiding a whole entire time-travel secondary power in there, I don't think you can give me what I want." He leans forward, arm hooking a little more firmly to steady his weight as he sways lightly. "We all up to more'n we let on, ain't we? I mean, not me I'm such an open book the whole country done read it but --" He shrugs, looking back down at Matt. "What would you have decided? For him?" "Oh darling, I was asking for your soul, that time." Matt's laughter is breathy and light. "But that is, shockingly, not among my secondary powers. Alas for my soul exception." His eyes stray out toward the darkened skyline of the city beyond the next bend in the path, and he does not answer at once. "Gods, but that's a whole book that was never written." He seems genuinely startled when a tear slides down his cheek and drops onto his hand, which freezes where he'd been playing absent fingertips along the spine of the book cradled against his chest. His brows furrow, and he tries with little avail to blink away the tears. "I'd've had him doing for me what he was doing on my behalf." He closes his eyes, swallows, and when he opens them again they're cold and glassy. "But like I said, it doesn't matter now. So it goes." Jax's eye rolls up towards the leaves above, and at first it seems like this might be the terrible pun. But then he's shaking his head, sliding down to sit on the knotty root, his legs swinging freely below. "Gosh, would you even know what t'do with a soul, if you come across one?" Though his voice is still Jax's, gentle and drawling, there's something cooler in his tone that distinctly isn't. His gaze is still turned up, fingers flexing in time with a fluttering shimmer that Matt can feel in his flex of power though the light it bends is somewhere beyond his visual perception. "You Tessiers sure use a lot of words to say absolutely nothing. Maybe that's the real secondary mutation." "Show me one, and we'll both find out," Matt says dryly, "I'm adaptable, verbally and otherwise." He looks back up, expression at once exasperated and intrigued. "So what would you have me say? I wish I had taken more interest in his courtly affairs, or acted on the interest that I had in plenty instead of trying so hard to be something I'm not." His power twines through Jax's and projects a simple cartoon halo above his own head. "But I can only speculate what I might have done, and how things might have turned out differently." His jaw tightens and he looks away again, watching Flèche snuffle at a spray of ferns. "There's nothing to be gained by that. I am not Luci, and whatever Mother thinks, I can never replace him. No one can." His voice is suddenly vehement, and just as suddenly gentle again. "But I am adaptable. And you are, also." "What was you tryna be, then?" Mirror!Jax has propped their chin in their hand, leaning slightly over to stare down now at Matt. "Whether you can or not she's sure fixin' to try. S'pose you gonna have to start adapting, because those is some impeccably polished shoes to fill." "Mm. Once she gets something into her head there's no reasoning with her, but there are ways to finesse even Her aspiring Majesty." Matt doesn't roll his eyes, but somehow the graceful turn of his hand conveys it before ending in a flourish that indicates his illusory halo. "I'm no angel fallen or otherwise, but what I lack in souls I have the hearts of some very powerful people." He tips the halo and tips it to a jaunty angle that frames Mirror perfectly from his perspective--and vice versa. "Not yours, alas, but I know something of your worth and I'm keen to know it better." The twitch of his smile is beguiling even though it doesn't reach his uncanny eyes. "You and your...peons helped Luci take down Prometheus." He pronounces "peon" like the French "pion". "Now I want your help cleaning up the wreckage." "Cleaning up? Oh, honey-honey, I look like a maid to you?" In fairness, Jax's clothing has shimmered and changed now to a lacy French maid outfit. "Like I done alla that work for alla that time jus' to clean up Holland's mess?" He's hopping lightly down from his perch to brush the feather duster light and imperceptible against Matt's face, but when the illusory duster vanishes from view all Jax's blazing-heat energy has vanished with it. "Or perhaps you do genuinely believe the whole of my life was spent in full service of your ends." It's Lucien standing there, now, unassuming grey suit and the very familiar clockwork hum of his mind, brilliant green eyes fixed cool on Matt and his voice soft and regretful. "And perhaps it was. But that is past, non? Prometheus is past. And if you want a seat on my court, do at least try to look to the future." Unruffled by Mirror's reaction, Matt gives a small puff of laughter at the intangible brush of the feather duster. "Suit yourself, but there's a lot of money and effort going into--" Into what? He doesn't gasp or recoil or fly into a rage when Mirror takes his brother's form. He just stops--outwardly, anyway. His power curls reflexively around and into Lucien's--as if that's simply where it's meant to be--and augments it. Mirror!Lucien's biokinetic sense blossoms out to encompass the dogs and the fainter, less familiar congeries of processes churning away in the tiny lives all around them. And Matt, his paradoxical emptiness teeming with love and hatred and curiosity and grief and rapacity. It's only a glimpse before he withdraws his power, blinking again in surprise at his own tears and possibly not noticing the small step he'd taken toward the shapeshifter. "Prometheus is past," he agrees in a tone of surpassing patience. "But the labrat refugee crisis isn't going away anytime soon. That is near to the hearts of many who hold me dear, including a billionaire with his fingers in a lot of pies who could really stand to use his head a little more." He taps his temple with two fingers. "Xavier is desperate to help our people, and I can talk him into almost anything, if the story were framed right.The past--" He gestures expansively at the specter of his brother. "--is key to the future. Luci wielded it well and so can I, in my own fashion." Mirror!Lucien's eyes open a little wider, something tightening infinitesimally in the complex machinery of his mind. His shoulders tense, too, as if this will block out the sudden blossoming awareness. Reflexively his breath has caught when Matt steps even fractionally nearer, and then eases again only when the other man draws no closer. He's melting swiftly, Lucien's suit now slightly baggy on Mirror's own frame. "Can you?" Is this intrigue or skepticism -- in the small tilt of Mirror's head, the small lift of their brows, it's hard to distinguish. A faint smile plays at the corners of their mouth. "If that's true you just might turn out to be half the bishop he was, after all." They're wandering off, now, towards the maze of books at the center. "I guess we'll just have to see what kind of story you tell."