2013.05.26 - Family Reunion - Part Two - Two I Say

"Kurt!" Amanda's voice rings out from her closeted circle, through the apartment, easily heard wherever the fuzzy blue elf might be lurking. "I need you!" She has no doubt the call, not to mention the stress in her voice, will bring him running -- bamfing, more accurately -- to her side with all due haste. She reaches out a hand, silently asking him to help her up with the gesture. 
She looks more drawn, now, than she did when she first sat down to meditate, despite her earlier reassurances to him that the meditation session wouldn't hurt, that it would actually do her some good. (Okay. So, she was wrong on that one. It's not her fault!) "Did you know you have another daughter?" she asks, leaning heavily against him for a moment, pressing a hand in mild discomfort to her back where the bandage still covers the angry remnants of the worst of her wounds. "We have a daughter?" It was news to her, it will very likely be news to him. 
"Help me to the living room, would you? I'd sooner not greet her in the bedroom." In her sanctum, she means. She prefers to greet the stranger in her public space. 
Once they are out in the living room, she settles into her favorite arm chair, because it's most comfortable and doesn't require her to stand. She doubts she can stand and channel the amount of energy she needs to open the portal the girl will require to actually enter the apartment from so far away. It's not like her visitor is likely to be able to create the portal herself. Chances are she's never been to this apartment before. Chances are even greater that Amanda's wards would crush any external portal attempt before the gateway fully established. So, there's no choice. It's got to be Amanda that creates it.
Consequently, she doesn't bother telling Kurt what she's going to do before she does it. There's no point having the argument. She knows she can rely on him to act as 'bodyguard', regardless, should it be necessary. (Though, she doubts it will be. The girl didn't seem hostile, so much as out of her expected comfort zone and, frankly, a little condescending -- in a way that rather reminded Amanda of her mother. (And, okay, maybe that's not the best first impression to give the sorceress, but it's not like she's put her best foot forward, either.)
Thus, leaning back in her chair and letting its soft leather support her, thereby disguising her weakened state at least a little, Amanda raises her hands and draws glyphs in the air, whispering a soft chant as she does. The air in the middle of the room shimmers and, presently, an oval portal, surrounded in violet energy, crackles open. Beyond it can be seen a wilderness area about seven miles outside of San Jose... and a blue-skinned young woman who soon enough steps through, leaving the twilight of California behind her to enter the New York apartment.
"Nightcrawler," Amanda says to Kurt, her blue eyes on Merle as the portal winks out of existence behind her, "Meet Blue. Our daughter."
Aside from the various and sundry errands that Kurt feels he needs attending, he's not strayed from Amanda's side since bamfing her from the hospital, home. It was a sight, really, in the ICU. The fact that their patient was bamfed out from under pinging machines... without the benefit of any 'samples' left behind. They'd not know what to do with it other than 'pour here', anyway... and a little knowledge is worse than none.
With the bellowing for his aid (Okay, requests in raised voice), the elf is by her side physically, aiding and bamfing here and there about the apartment. Why walk when one can take the bamf-express? It's nothing Kurt doesn't do on a regular basis, anyway. Even more so now, what with the added bit of potential 'fun' in the mix!
Once Amanda settles into her comfy couch, Kurt bamfs onto the back and perches like a fuzzy, blue gargoyle, his tail carefully set to the side. In sight, but not touching- not unless Amanda actually reaches out for it for contact.
There, however, is a different kind of contact made, and those glowing yellow eyes widen, and he looks down at her, in concern and a little warning. "Leibling... don't..."
But, it's a little too late. Amanda's learned...
It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
The portal causes the fur on the back of his neck to rise, as it always does in proximity to her magic... and he leans over to put a hand on her shoulder, ready to ask if it's all very necessary. Still, there's the trust there, and she needs him.
The emergence of a blue-skinned young woman, however, brings his attention around, and he looks as if he can be knocked over with a feather... if it weren't for the fact that he's got a good hold on the back of that chair. At Amanda's words, he bamfs up such that he feet are on the ceiling, and he's hanging upside down, nose to nose with the blonde.
"You could have said something before now, leibling?"
Knowing that's a find how do you do, Kurt clears his throat and drops, only to flip around very much like a cat and land on the floor, crouching. His brows rise as he stands up, his attention back on the newly arrived. "Are there many more?"
Nice.
In California, Merle waits after telling her mother her name -- and with it her identity -- feeling bad for having been so heavy handed but she is still somewhat occupied with concern for Peter and the rest of her team left behind in a Sentinel controlled laboratory waiting for her to return with instructions from the helicarrier. She saw the signs of pain in the expression in the too youthful version of her mother's face that had been projected before her moments ago and so concern about Amanda begins blending with thoughts of her boyfriend and teammates.
Then, Amanda's portal opens before her, casting its violet light into the deepening California twilight around her. Seeing her parents together in an actually familiar positioning brings a wry smile to Merle's features and, with good dramatic timing, she steps though the portal as Amanda says her code name.
"More?" Merle asks and then remembers the mention of Nocturne a few minutes ago which evokes an expression of dawning understanding on around her eyes. She answers Kurt's question by saying, "I am an only child at the very least, sir." The last word sounds natural and reflexive as she says it.
Amanda glances up to Kurt at his words and resists the urge to smack him, giving him A Look, instead. Usually, his flippancy amuses her. Tonight, however, she's tired and in pain and has been caught completely off-guard for the second time in three days by a blue-skinned woman. Needless to say, this has the sorceress at once both off-kilter and a little grumpy. 
She gestures toward the couch, happy to keep Kurt beside her at her armchair, unless he chooses to move. "Please," she says to Merle, now. "Have a seat. You've come a long way." She doesn't mean just from California, either. Really, she should offer the girl something to eat and drink, but that would require getting up, which she's not going to do, right now. 
"Why don't you start at the beginning, Merle, and bring Kurt and I up to speed?" She reaches up to hold his hand, wanting the comfort of his presence at her side, just now, holding herself stiffly because of her injuries.
Kurt jumps up onto the back of Amanda's chair again, his hand dropping such that he can hold Amanda's, his thumb stroking the top of her hand. His tail slides down the side to rest at her arm; a presence, nothing more, though the flattened spaded-tip twitches ever so slightly. His brows rise at being called sir, and his head cants to the side as he studies the girl. 
"Ja.. take a seat," Kurt echoes the offer, a little more gently as things are sort of sinking in. It's been a long few days, and it doesn't appear as if anything is going to let up any time soon.
Amanda's got the right idea, however.. getting the girl to talk. His tones are light, and with a lifting of Amanda's hand for a brief kiss, he's off to the kitchen in a *bamf*
"I'm actually fascinated.. so many options are open to me, apparently, in so many dimensions. Und I'm stuck with Hell..." sounds from the other room as he works to get tea, coffee.. and some soda. (He's been shopping!) As well as sandwiches...
Merle nods to Amanda and Kurt -- who are both her parents and... to a degree strangers as well -- as she takes the offered seat. Intending to relax, she unbuckles and unzips the vest as she moves to the chair and shrugs it off. After she sits she reflexively folds it and lays it in her lap as she gathers her thoughts. 
"The beginning," Merle says thoughtfully, "Can mean so many things. My personal beginning. The stories I've heard of your courtship. The mission I was on." She pauses and nods to herself, "I know, I'll start with the beginning of the X-Men as I know them as that is integrally tied to the big difference I immediately noticed as the brimstone cleared after my pamph..." 
When Kurt teleports to the kitchen, Merle turns her head in that direction. Seeing where he has gone she calls out, "If it’s an option I'd like some Earl Gray, sir," to Nightcrawler. 
Returning her attention to Amanda, Merle resumes the 'story' she was telling. "Shortly after an incident of all Hell literally breaking loose in New York City when the United States government reactivated the Sentinel program to help 'protect' its citizens from the 'mutant menace'. Unfortunately things didn't go as they planned and the Sentinels expanded their directive to controlling the citizens. Canada and Mexico fell quickly after the United States did." The next she addresses to Kurt specifically, "You were influential in uniting the surviving heroes around the world under the banner of the X-Men. As a group the X-Men was able to forestall the Sentinels' advances and kept the rest of the world free. I was born a year after the formal truce was forged between the two super-powers."
She pauses to let all this sink in so far.
Amanda's lips twitch faintly as Merle continues to call Kurt 'sir'. She's pretty sure he's never been called 'sir' a day in his life. As the young woman begins her story, however, the sorceress merely sits and listens, reserving judgment. With Kurt out in the kitchen, she lays her hands lightly on the arms of her chair, tucking one leg under the other to break any impression that she's sitting on a throne or a captain's chair or any such thing. 
She glances Kurt's way at his dry comments, listening to the sound of cups and dishes clinking. Doubtlessly, she'll end up with tea, rather than coffee. And probably an herbal tea, rather than anything with a lot of caffeine, if she knows Kurt (and she does), because he'll be trying to ensure that, when this is all over, she gets a good night's sleep -- instead of being hopped up on any sort of stimulant or sugar. She is, however, gracious enough, to tell the girl, "I'm sorry... I don't think there is any Earl Grey." Unless Kurt bought some. It's not something she normally buys.
"I must have been a very busy elf.." Kurt calls out from the kitchen. Of course, that's what he picks up on! Can anyone else hear that *flex* in his tones? Anyone?
Kurt's got the kettle on, and the percolator for coffee before he gets to working on the sandwiches. If blue fur makes it in the various dressings... oops. 
Once the water finishes boiling and the percolator's perc'ed, Kurt's got the nibbles ready.. and he bamfs out with everything, utilizing hands and tail. Herbal tea. Amanda's guessed correctly!
"You were an X-Man then," as if the fuzzy elf needs to ask. Truth be told, however, as he sets everything down on the table, he takes a step back before perching on the back of Amanda's chair like the blue, fuzzy gargoyle he is.
"Sentinels..." Beat. "So we lost North America to the Sentinels, but then had a truce? They actually agreed to a truce?"
It's a nice night outside. Nice enough to leave a window open, even partially. Nice enough for TJ to have gone out the window, climbed the side of the building, and find somewhere peaceful upon the roof to settle for a while. Being a stranger in a strange land is nothing unfamiliar to her, but this whole 'jump' was different. No team. No Tallus. No objective. Just... a mistake. Another error in the system. Is this how the various timelines got damaged in the first place? Would her being stuck here like this end up destroying the life of someone else in a far out dimension?
There's been a lot weighing upon her mind. She hasn't had that much time to relax and reflect since arriving here before now. If she's lucky there won't be any unexpected bamfs within her general proximity, her 'father' didn't need to see her like this.
Not that she can't catch wind of some of the commotion happening within the building. Sulfur travels, and there's a lot of it being generated in short order. Among other things. That's why she crawls back down the side of the building, holds a three-fingered hand to the window, opens it enough that she can slip in, and--
"Whoa." Blink. "Sorry, total Keanu moment there, but what the heck? I was okay being the only child in this dimension, honest!"
"I am an X-man," she says correctively to her father, no sir this time but without any true disrespect either. "Everyone was sceptical about the truce, but they seemed to honour it. At least for a few years. When I was a child they started trying to move again, occasionally and in small numbers. Neither side fully honoured it again. They would make moves to expand and be fought back in the Americas or at the Bearing Straight, we would make scouting missions or strikes to counter their plans and..."
It is then that TJ enters though the window and Merle's expression mirrors her half-sister's. "You must be Nocturne," she says softly after letting the moment sink in.
Amanda gives TJ a tight smile as the other dimensional traveler returns. She shifts a little, finding a slightly different position so that her back might stop aching, and gives Kurt a genuine smile as he gives her the herbal tea. Yeah. She knows him. She thanks him with a lift her cup and holds it in steepled fingers in front of her nose, inhaling its aroma while she waits for it to cool enough to drink. Regardless, her head leans back against his leg, using him not so much as a pillow as a simple touchstone of comfort, more than anything else.
She still remains silent, however, listening. She's, perhaps, not as familiar with the Sentinels as Kurt apparently is, so she glances briefly at him as he speaks, before returning her attention to Merle. 
See, wall crawling just doesn't get old. Not for him.. and when Kurt catches TJ doing it, he grins, fangs showing. "Spiderman has nothing on us." Her surprise doesn't surprise him in the least. Hell, for him, this is still only minutes old.. and while he had some semblance of 'fair warning' with TJ, as in I've met one of them in the past, 'Blue' is new. His brows rise at her words, and he gestures towards the sandwiches laid out. "Come in, leibchen... sit und have something before we all turn in again..." He looks between the two blue girls, and his gaze lingers upon the newest arrival.
"You are not an X-man here, meine Tochter blau. Do not believe you have all at your fingertips. Humility will serve you best right now." Kurt's tail flicks ever so lightly beside Amanda as he takes up his coffee for a sip. "They are not to be trusted, ever. Nor are their keepers, who are doubly dangerous simply because they are zealots."
"Guess it's in our nature to be the hero sorts," TJ half-mutters. NewChick is/was an X-Man. Nocturne is/was an X-Man. She's going to go ahead and assume that Kurt is/was, too. Seriously, just look at the guy! He's like her real father, except less of a pain in the tail, and he helped lead the X-Men back where she came from.
"And you must be lost..?" TJ replies to Merle, her head canted at a peculiar angle as she (just like Kurt!) finds something sturdy and nearby enough that she can perch upon. "Wait--don't tell me. You've become unstuck in time. I've heard this story before. Are you here to make sure I get back to my timeline?"
Also like her 'father,' TJ is peering. Little else on this planet can peer like those featureless yellow eyes, backlit within the darkness of night. "This is just too surreal."
Also, sandwiches. With a quick and silent hop she's up to the ceiling (like living with a family of xenomorphs, isn't it?) and crawling over so she can swipe a sandwich with her tail. It's like a squirrel nibbling on an acorn, except bigger, more blue, and inverted.
Merle accepts sandwiches and her tea as well. She seems to take the mini-lecture from Nightcrawler as a matter of course although when he caller her 'meine Tochter blau' her eyes go wide for a moment not having expected to hear that phrase here. 
"Of course, sir," Merle says acknowledging Kurt's advice before answering TJ's question. "I was getting to a safe distance for comm use to report the temporal lab we'd discovered while scouting Silicon Valley and... well, I ended up in this world instead of my own," she explains before turning her attention back to the food her father prepared, apparently accustomed to his shedding in the food or simply to polite to comment on it.
'Surreal' isn't quite the word Amanda has for all of this. She's glad, though, that Kurt's able to field better, more coherent responses than she, just at this moment. Looking around the room, at all the blue faces, however, Amanda suddenly feels a little out-numbered and a lot weary. 
Letting out a soft sigh, she scrubs her face and, particularly, her eyes, with the heels of her hands. "This is promising to be a very long discussion," she says softly, now. "And I want to hear it. But, I'm going to be honest. I'm at least a day or two," not to mention a potion or two, "away from being my usual, sunny self. Blue, you're welcome to stay here, of course. Everyone's welcome to stay." Indeed, she'd be disappointed if Kurt and TJ left, truthfully. "There's an extra pull-out under the day-bed in the guest room. If you and Nocturne don't mind being roommates for a couple of days, perhaps we can continue this in the morning?" Kurt, she actually rather hopes, can crash on his usual side of her bed. "Will you see to it?" she asks him -- meaning the details of sleeping arrangements, clean sheets, and the like, of course.
She gives him a wan smile, "I really need a couple of extra-strength Tylenol and a good night's sleep to see this through properly." Looking to the others, then. "I'm sorry."
Kurt looks up at TJ and smirks, holding out his hand to catch the crumbs that are bound to fall. "Put a paper plate down, leibchen," he advices with that touch of humor tinging his words, "I've learned that with cookies. Who knew Amanda didn't like chocolate chips in her rug?"
Merle's reaction to his German does gain a little more attention from him, and he quirks his head, those glowing yellow eyes seeming a little brighter, thanks to the darkness without. His response, however, is one that is a little quieter, "You do not have to call me 'sir', meine Blau. I do, however, respond to a various array of names. Hey you! works.. und Elf!, und Hey, se--.." On that one, he pauses before shaking his head. "Never mind that one." Beat. "But I do want to hear about this temporal lab tomorrow, ja?"
Kurt sets his coffee aside, and nods at Amanda's words. "It is time, I think, for us to turn in. The last few days haven't been the easiest.. for any of us, I would think." Again, he looks between the girls and exhales, "If you both would? Danke.." and with that, he reaches to take Amanda's hand again, and with a squeeze, he disappears from the living room, only to reappear in what is Amanda's Master bedroom. Sticking his head out of the door, he calls out, "Good night.. und sleep well.."
Put down a plate. TJ flashes Kurt a quick look then stuffs the remainder of the sandwich into her mouth. Not the brightest idea, given that she still has plenty to say. (And really, what Wagner doesn't?) "Ithn't thath a litthle redundanth?" she asks, both from Kurt's 'meine Tochter blau' and Amanda's more simplified 'Blue.' Now there's three blued mutants all up in this place, two of them of the daughter persuasion.
Swallowing hard to clear her pointy-lined maw, she adds "Thank goodness I already had a name picked out for myself, it's gonna start sounding like a color palette around here at this rate."
There is a slight look of concern passed toward Amanda. Only slight, though. Heck, she's already home after being mortally injured. TJ can't be that worried anymore! "Lot to take in, isn't it?"
Sharing living space is no big deal. They should all be fairly well adjusted to that by now after spending time with the X-Crew, in one fashion or another. "Yeah, it's all good. Though, if you don't mind I think I'd like to spent a bit more time imitating a Gotham statue on the roof."
The question is mostly directed toward Kurt, if her line of sight is any indication. It's a nice night, and she's got a lot to think about.
Then again, Kurt just bamfed out. Victory by absent voter! Back to the window she goes.
"M-" Merle starts to speak and interrupts herself, when she continues a beat later she covers the slip clumsily. "`Manda, you should take care of yourself, my sister and I will take care of the pull-out which I greatly appreciate."
Merle doesn't bother to address Kurt's bantering with TJ nor his apparent interest in her reaction to the very familiar pet name he happened upon. On the topic of the lab, however, she says, "Yes sir, I'll make sure to catch you up on that," obviously either ignoring his request to not call him sir or finding it to ingrained despite the dark hair and the lack of an eyepatch.
Then she grins at TJ. "Blue happens to be my code name, Nocturne, I'm very used to being address by it," Merle explains and then says, "Yes, it really is," to the question about there being a lot to take in.
As her parents leave the room Merle turns to talk to Nocturne and smiles at the irony of her sudden departure -- completely fine with it. She finds the guest room and makes the bed but sits down on the floor cross-legged instead and meditates on the events of the last hour.
Category:Log