[snuggle up real close everyone]

[cephalon]

Who: The fair crew and visitors of the Windrose
Action: Aboard the Windrose
When: May

[It's a mingle! Make friendly everyone~]

Comments

[passingthrough]

Oooh. Shiny. [She reaches out.] Erik, thank you again for all this. [She looks really grateful. Touched even.]

[grandstanding]

[He smiles at that. While it started just as something to do, something to strengthen a connection he had a head start with, he has enjoyed it for its own sake.] You're welcome. If I ever lose something down the side of a cabinet, you can repay the favour and phase it out for me.

[passingthrough]

[Consider that connection strengthened. Strange how many of the mutants she trusts most here are ones who don't consider themselves X-Men back in their homes. Or two anyway.] I would love to. I'm also great for hiding things in walls, getting ships into bottles, and bringing up topics that make people uncomfortable.

[grandstanding]

That last one can't be a power, surely.

[passingthrough]

I'm not so sure. What I do know is that I'm exceptionally good at it.

[grandstanding]

I don't think you've quite made me uncomfortable yet. [Maybe she needs to level up first.] Other than the first day, but most everyone managed it then.

[passingthrough]

Well that's something at least. I'm sure I've left some details out that could swing back toward uncomfortable though.

[grandstanding]

Don't take it as a challenge.

[passingthrough]

[Smiling as she silently crosses her heart. No bringing up his children or Rogue.]

It's usually more that it comes out without me realizing how that might affect someone from a different world with a different life and different relationships. Or just forgetting what a mess my reality is compared to 95% of other realities. Which can swing either way. Sometimes I act like other people's homes are perfect when of course they aren't.

[grandstanding]

[He nods, understanding that to some extent.] It's cultural differences on a massive scale.

[passingthrough]

Yeah. So much culture shock in the prison. I'm largely adjusted, but also not completely. Kurt would still be where I was way back then.

[grandstanding]

It wasn't quite the same where I was. Given people only remembered bits and pieces of their lives, the confusion was... equal opportunity.

[The number of times he'd seen something that was nonsensical in someone else's memory was surely matched by how confusing his own seemed to them.]

[passingthrough]

I'm trying to decide if that's a good thing. I guess so, but also...wide-scale head fuckery.

[grandstanding]

[That actually gets a laugh out of him. Kitty has no idea.]

Yes, it was indeed.

[passingthrough]

At least you can laugh about it now? [Literally.] I think I've been lucky in my abductions. [She doesn't like thinking about Erik or Hank or Charles for that matter in that place.] Hank told me a little more about some of the things that happen. [Look at her playing so well with Hank and even calling him Hank instead of growling out "McCoy."]

[grandstanding]

[He does make note of it, and is privately glad things are on a more even keel now. Hearing that Hank has talked about the past, though... he has to wonder.]

Did he really. [None of them are particularly fond of discussing what happened, but Erik would also believe Hank has the fewest hangups about it.]

[passingthrough]

I'm sure I have plenty of character flaws, but none of them really include lies or tall tales. We've had some talks. Kind of not how I saw that going with us, but he's not the Henry McCoy from my world.

[grandstanding]

It's always good to hear. I was just wondering what he'd told you.

[passingthrough]

He talked about the time he died and how some of the games have to end in death.

[grandstanding]

[Erik doesn't look remotely surprised at the mention of Hank's death. Or even bothered.]

So, the heavy things. You really are getting along.

[passingthrough]

Mutants have funny ways of bonding, don't we? [She's pretty sure this goes beyond mutants, but still.] I told him that I die back home too. A few seconds after I was pulled out for all the prison fun.

[grandstanding]

Oh... I'm sorry. [And he is. He had known that Kitty's world was no more, but to hear her tell it this way, her death occurred before that. It makes it more real. And yet, unreal, because he never knew her then. He didn't see her live, or die. She has always been alive to him.]

[passingthrough]

[She smiles at him gently.] It's okay. I'm alive now. Just not in any hurry to get home. And I've known for awhile though Kurt accusing me of masquerading as his dead friend when he arrived gave it that extra layer of confirmation.

[grandstanding]

I suppose it would. [A tragedy for them both.]

I've died before, but it was never permanent. It never happened at home. [Barring the world-destroying event that had resulted in his waking up in Kyriakos to begin with. Everyone on Earth had been destroyed by that. So the story goes.]

[passingthrough]

I think it's made him even more protective of me.

Did you know it wouldn't be permanent when it happened? [She wonders how different that really makes it.]