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Erik?

[ And then, completely pink - ]

You could have said something!

I considered just ignoring you and moving on. [He decided against it, in the end. One ear flicks.] Very few people know about this.

Well, I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to.

[ She leans forward, though, fighting her smile. ]

I can't believe you can talk in your animal form.

I'd appreciate it. [It's not something he wants to become general knowledge. He seats himself, watching her movements.]

Because you can't do the same in yours, correct? It was never an issue for those of us who got this ability.

Of course.

[ Hermione's open about hers, but it's different for everyone - why would she hurt someone she cares about by spilling their secrets, anyway? ]

When I'm a lioness I kind of... Lose myself a little bit. I'm still me, but I'm an animal too. I can't talk to anyone, and I could only just talk to Charles mentally.

It's likely the different nature of the power.

You're probably right. The boons we got always had an upside and a downside.

[ She was half tempted to go Well, I can fly but - she thinks he'd have a comeback for that. ]

I'm glad it was me you stumbled across instead of someone else, though. I'm used to wolves, but not everyone would be so friendly.

I've been keeping out of sight. [He's well aware of the dangers - he had nearly skewered Mystique himself, when she had run across him in her wolf form. It's a popular skill these days.

In the next breath, the wolf is suddenly gone, replaced with Erik sitting cross-legged on the ground.]

And it won't be a habit.

I'm glad to hear it. There are dinosaurs out there, you know. [ Which is true. Apparently people are just wandering around for the tree and not really paying attention to the fact that there are a few more dangers than they realised.

Still, she blinks when Erik appears and her expression softens into a smile. ]

It's nice to see you again, Erik.

I know. I have no intention of running into them.

[He nods.] Though, it hasn't been that long.

I'm glad to hear you're not as stupid as some people, then.

[ Not that she can talk, with her history, but all the same - ]

I'm used to seeing someone twice a week or so being a treat. Humour me.

[Intentions don't always work out, sadly.]

The world you're from was rather large, wasn't it. I have to say I prefer the opportunity to be more solitary. [There was little hope of it in Kyriakos. He lived with his team, and would have to see the other teams every day. On occasions it became so grating that he would actively seek quests that took him out of the general populace.]

It started out as one giant continent, massive from North to South, but when we went back in time there were islands spread out across the map and it was a little harder to go and find people.

[ Hermione pauses and she hesitates before... Okay. ]

Well, if you ever want to be rid of me then you just have to say. I understand needing to be alone sometimes.

[Odd. It sounds like the opposite of Earth's development, from one supercontinent into a number of landmasses.]

Hermione, if I didn't want to talk to you, you would know it.

I didn't mean right now. I meant in the future.

[ She does still smile, though, before she shifts forward a little. ]

It does remind me, though... I remembered something, about the Drabwurld. About you, and Charles. Is - could I tell you?

[He no longer harbours the same reluctance to hear about this other Charles that he once did. Having the one he knows here takes the edge off, though he's still wary of anything too detailed from these other worlds. They don't relate to his own. The line must be clearly drawn.]

Go ahead.

[ Hermione knows if she hadn't been able to forge a connection with this new Charles she would've been in a far worse position than she is now - she's happy, right now, and content, and almost at peace with it. They're friends and he understands her, and that's all she really needs, isn't it? It helps to talk about it, though, and with Erik here - well, she can't not tell him. ]

It was after we went back in time and we lost a lot of us - shardbearers, that it, those people that chose to go home rather than to stay in the Drabwurld. I had to check to make sure Charles was still there because it was Charles and I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle it if he wasn't. But - that's not important.

[ She waves her hand, absently. ]

He told me that there was someone from home that had been taking care of him, someone that hadn't been in our Court, so he'd never told me about it. He said that you were making sure he was safe, the entire time, and I had no idea, but I know it was you - or a version of you, since he told me all about the magnetic fields and levitating.

[ Shifting, she sits up a little. ]

I just thought - it's nice. That you take care of each other, no matter what world you're in.

[At the outset, he feels a bit rankled that this other Charles opted to stay in some magical other world than go home. He would have expected otherwise, given the kind of chance Hermione speaks of. Before he can remind himself that what people in other realities do is none of his concern, she keeps going... and, oh.

That leaves him silent, and he has to look away. He doesn't feel the sting of guilt, not anymore, but it sparks a somber note in him. The ties that bind him and Charles together can be gossamer, or vines with thorns. If he had to look back on his life before other worlds - not difficult, given the outside view he'd been forced to take - he found it hard to reconcile the idea that those two men would want to take care of each other. Maybe they hadn't been through the same things. Or maybe they had found some way to repair the rift between them. He and Charles had, of course, it wasn't impossible. But it had been bought with so much blood and suffering that it's hard to picture how it might work in another time. Another place.]

We haven't always done so. If that's really what happened, then -- they're lucky.

Oh, they were definitely lucky. Being able to stay friends for almost two years despite being on opposite sides of a war? Not everyone could manage that.

[ She and Harry couldn't; neither could she and Katsa. Somehow she had scraped her friendship with Nasrin and held it close, but otherwise... Hermione's Unseelie friendships had been few and far between, mostly because of her own rather grand Seelie reputation. She can still remember Saber staring at her, she can recall seeing Caer Scima's fall... All of it torturing her even when she tried to shove it off.

Shifting, she frowns, turning her gaze away, trying to lock up all her own thoughts and emotions before she breathes out. ]

I know it wasn't easy, and it wasn't just luck, either. It was determination. I know Charles, and I know if he hadn't believed that there was a way for you - them - to work things out then he wouldn't have tried. But... He always had hope, and he always inspired me to do the same. I just think... [ She glances back to Erik, almost shy. ] It's interesting to see that in different worlds, and different realities, somehow you come together again. That's pretty amazing.

Probably because they have experience. [Maybe it hadn't been a war, not quite. But opposing sides was something they would understand all too well. Erik rests his chin on one hand, staring into the undergrowth ahead of them.]

I don't know that that's always the case.

Does it have to always be the case? The fact that it's happened more than once in completely different universes... [ She pauses, frowning, considering for a moment. Then she shifts, forcing herself to sit up a little taller, to try and be as confident as she think she should. ] I think it's great. And I'm glad you're here, Erik, not just for Charles but... In general.

I suppose you're right.

[He relents, somewhat, in the face of her determined look. If she feels that strongly about it, it's not for him to disavow her of the notion. In truth he's grateful, regardless of how he feels about some other version of himself who-- wait.]

--you said I was likely there with him. You mean to say they both chose to stay in that world?

[ She pauses, before she tilts her head up and nods gently. ]

Charles said that he'd managed to fix things in his world. I'm not sure what that was, but... I think there was more to it than that. There always was, and I never got to see everything, since I was Marchioness of the Seelie Court and his friend - you - were Unseelie. He kept it a secret to save me from having to do something about it.

[ Reaching up, she presses a hand to her chest. ]

We all had shards, magical items that linked us to our home worlds. I think there would've been a way to go home in the end, a time when we got to choose, but I think there was something that kept Charles there. Maybe it was the same for the other Erik as well.

[Unless it was the promise of safety for mutantkind, Erik can't see what that something might be. Even that he would view with utmost suspicion. His natural impulse is to scorn the idea, and want to distance himself from it. "Fixing things" in their world was not the work of a moment. Even the wishes Erik and Charles had been granted at the end of the library had proven false.

Erik remembers with bitterness that he'd wished for safe haven, for those mutants who wanted to find it. His mind had been wiped again, and that wish had never materialised. He would never again listen to beings promising a solution to things beyond reckoning. He hadn't even taken the offer of a wish at the end of Kyriakos. Better to do things himself, and know that even if he failed, at least it was his own doing rather than that of someone else offering a false helping hand.]

I don't believe that. [He has no reason to, and doesn't want to soften his words here.] Not unless their hands were forced.

You don't have to believe in it, because it's true. There's no maybe or maybe not - it just is. That's what happened.

[ There's a part of her that prickles at the idea of her lying, or not telling the truth, as if she's somehow making up some lie that he might want to hear. No, she didn't know the Erik in the Drabwurld, she had never been around him, but she frowns as she sits up to look over at him, intense and sure and certain. Her memories of Charles are a trigger in her mind and she clings to it - because she can't abandon her memories of him, her love for him, no matter how much of this other Charles she knows. They've shared an intimacy that comes from opening her mind entirely, and there's no denying that it's helped their intimacy develop.

Hermione's frown is in place, and she watches him, tight and sure. ]

'I know I keep my cards close, but you know more about me than any other person I've met here.' That's what he said to me. I knew Charles - I know him, and - and I know that he made the choice that was right for him, and - the Erik that was there made the choice right for him, too. You don't have to understand that they made it, but they did. He was there, and he was happy, in his own way and - isn't that enough?

[ Hesitating, Hermione blinks a little, overcome by her own emotions, and she turns her head to look at Erik sheepishly, reaching out to lean forward, touching her hand to his shoulder, awkward and uncomfortable. ]

I'm sorry, I'm just - Charles is... A sore subject to me. The choices I made - he supported me. He gave me the strength to do it. He wasn't forced to do anything. I - I don't want to think about him being forced to stay with me - with us. [ A pause. ] With you.

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