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[spaceshipit]

Who: Everyone!
Broadcast: If you want!
Action: July Planet!
When: The month of July!

[This is another planet mingle since the first one has nearly hit captcha! Feel free to continue threads or start brand new ones!]

July Planet Information

First Mingle Post

Comments

[grandstanding]

[His breath stutters in his chest at the memories flowing into him. He had hoped, of course, in the beginning of his sentence. In his stripped back way he had hoped - or believed - that Raven would come and get him out of there before long. Or, an ever-more far flung hope, that Charles would assert some influence to overturn the conviction, knowing that it was false. That hope had lasted longer than he'd thought it would, though as the years passed it turned more into bitter delusion. By the fifth year, he'd stopped entirely, as blank as those walls.

His hand clenches around hers, as his own feelings tilt towards painful acceptance.]

Yes. I can see that.

[athru]

[ There's no denying the fact that she feels a lot for Erik - almost too much, sometimes, with an intensity it would be easier to hide. The thing is that she's far too used to hiding and tucking herself away, she's used to pretending to feel things or be someone she isn't, and honestly she's exhausted with it all. She wants to be honest, she wants to show herself and admit everything, and - that's all there is to it.

She's too tired to pretend to be something else. ]

I tried. I promise, Erik, I really did try.

[ None of them deserve to be locked up. Never. ]

[grandstanding]

[He doesn't say "I know", because the truth was he hadn't known. To hear it - see it - for himself repairs some long broken part of his trust. It also opens some flickers of memory. With the connection between them open, there's no avoiding the ghostly, insubstantial memory of those endlessly blank concrete walls. The pentagonal window above, so often empty of any feature. The guards knew how to deliver his food and other items without being seen. Endless, harrowing tedium. Just as endless, the knowledge that no one was coming to help him. It's only a vague flash, because to pick out singular moments is nearly impossible. Most of his time in that cell was marked by nothing. It had only been upon breaking out, and seeing a newspaper for the first time in years, that Erik could truly confirm how long he had been in that place.

Swallowing, he cuts the memory off, recalling himself. No one needs to see that. He was endlessly glad that no one in his team had accidentally taken those memories.]

[athru]

[ He didn't know, and that's fair. Ten years had passed and even Raven would have given up in that time - she doesn't have the same stubbornness and determination as Erik and she knows she'd have lost her mind and started crawling up the walls far earlier than he did. Still, the memories come and Raven breathes out a noise, looking at them through his eyes and feeling the hell of it, the horror of the boredom, the way that it's never soothed, no one around to talk to, just the sound of your own voice...

It's torture, and she feels rage bubbling inside of her. They tortured him for a crime he didn't commit, for trying to save someone's life. ]

I won't let anyone take you again.

[grandstanding]

[At that he snorts, a scant bit of tension broken.] You'll have a harder chore of it now. I'm the most wanted man in the world.

[Even so, he has no intention of being taken again. He'd take out anyone who tried.]

[athru]

I'm quite good at blending in.

[ And, she hesitates... ]

I'm not exactly 'unknown' either.

[grandstanding]

You're not. [He knows that, as well as he knows his own notoriety. All the papers, and the news, that had discussed Erik's actions had by the same hand discussed Mystique's. She was elevated into the hero role; he was painted as the villain. Typical of the American news, though he's certain similar tales were being spun all around the world, for those who cared to listen.]

Maybe I'll grow a beard, throw them off.

[athru]

[ It's obvious that Raven is stupidly uncomfortable with the idea of being a hero - they all knew the real reason she'd been there, and the fact the president had never been her target. She'd been there for Trask, and it'd been Charles that had saved that man's life, not her. If it wasn't for Charles... The world would be different.

Erik, though - she shakes her head and manages a laugh, biting the inside of her cheek to tame it. ]

I'm sure you'd look very dashing.

[grandstanding]

Try to contain your amusement.

[athru]

You'd look like a thin, angry Santa Claus.

[grandstanding]

I'm not sure which part of that offends me most.

[athru]

[ She's snorting, now, lifting a hand to cover her mouth as she turns away. ]

You can leave Charles lots of presents, and you look good in red...

[grandstanding]

Stop.

[athru]

You didn't ask me nicely.

[grandstanding]

And I'm not going to, after that display.

[athru]

You're not very jolly.

[ But she does stop, settling into the water and closing her eyes, head tilted back. ]

Have you been enjoying the planet, at least?

[grandstanding]

[He just huffs. His lack of jolliness is well noted.]

Very much so. Just being outside without a mask is wonderful.

[athru]

They were awful, weren't they? They bit into my skin all the time.

[ She crosses her arms, shaking her head. ]

It wasn't too bad inside, though.

[grandstanding]

[He doesn't think it surprising that Raven found the mask chafing. By this stage, she's probably fairly unused to anything being on her skin.]

That's damning it with faint praise.

[athru]

[ She's trying, at least, considering a new place and nakedness don't often go hand in hand - but most of the clothes she wears she makes herself, so she might as well be naked for how it can feel at times. ]

I wasn't going to sing songs about it, was I? My date was the only good part of that nonsense.

[grandstanding]

Ahh, yes. Hank mentioned that. [He lets that hang there, how much Hank told him being up to the imagination. It was essentially nothing.]

[athru]

Hank is such a gossip.

[ She huffs, crossing her arms. ]

He's told everyone.

[grandstanding]

[Now there's a title he never thought anyone would award Hank. He'll have to use it against the man later. Captain Gossip.]

I'm sure he's just... excited.

[athru]

[ And First Mate Mystique, of course. ]

I was, too. I suppose I just didn't have anyone to be excited at.

[grandstanding]

Other than Hank, I assume.