2012-07-12 The Old Country

Feeling safer in the West Village, Talia has spent the majority of the afternoon making quiet inquiries in some of the trendier, mutant-accepting parts of New York City. Giving a slight description of Wanda Maximoff to some mutants as if simply wondering 'what happened to that girl', she's done a decent job of not being too obvious about her search. Her search, of course, that has so far been fruitless. Now the sun has drawn over the city and clad it in nighttime, and the blue-skinned mutant has decided to head to some Transian restaurants in the West Village. Still finding no luck with the local immigrant gypsies that work some of the restaurants, her consolation prize is a cardboard container filled with food that reminds her of Wundagore. By herself on a streetside bench she eats, one slender jean clad in shredded jeans crossed over the other.
Call it fate, call it destiny, call it forces beyond the mortal ken; but as Talia is eating her food, the object of her seach walks by across the street. Wanda's not paying direct attention to her surroundings, lost in her own thoughts. She goes to a Transian hole-in-the wall restaurant, ordering some ciorba de perisonare, a sour soup with meatballs in it. It's a comfort dish she loved as a child and right now, she needs comforting.
Mid-bite, Talia keeps her eyes to the pavement when Wanda walks by, though as she passes her head tilts to the side to get a better look at her. Without a doubt that she has, in fact, found Wanda Maximoff, she waits until the door closes as her queue to close the paper box. Swallowing down the last bite of her chicken, she dabs her face with a napkin and rises from the bench. Slipping back into the restaurant, she moves to stand beside Wanda and gaze at the lunch counter. She speaks, quietly, in Romani. "I know I told them that I wanted this to go, but I guess we could get a table." She looks over, keeping a peaceful face. "Want to get some dinner, Wanda?"
Wanda's eyes go wide as Talia approaches her, and she tenses for a fight. When one is not forthcoming, she relaxes a bit. "I don't think there's anything we have to speak about," she says in Romani. "THere's nothing I could say to sway you to my point of view and there nothing you could say to change my mind, either." The soup is handed to Wanda in a styrofoam container, along with some frightened looks for associating with a demon, and Wanda takes the meal and walks off.
"That's...not entirely true." TJ replies, turning to follow after Wanda. Paper box behind her back, she quietly strolls through the front door and back out onto the city street. The blue-skinned mutant takes a deep breath, and just goes for it. "Your name is Wanda Maximoff, you were raised by your father, Erik, in Wundagore. Your brother is named Pietro Maximoff. You..." she tries a little deeper to get her attention. "...//really// hate marinara sauce and although you'd never admit it you tap your foot every time you hear Color Me Badd come on the radio." She pauses. "No, Wanda, we've got a lot to talk about."
Wanda turns around to face Talia, confused rather than angry. "What are you talking about? Yes, I was raised in Transia. And half of Europe as my caravan traveled. My father's name is Django Maximoff, not Erik. Not that it's any of your concern. And who is this 'Color Me Bad'? Some kind of music group?" Sure, she doesn't like marinara sauce, but she says nothing about that.
"Well...I got some of them right." Talia sighs to the side, deflating just a little bit. She blinks slowly, biting down a wave of frustration. "Django, I--" She stops herself, flattening her darkened lips. Breathing in a bit of returned confidence, she locks her eyes on Wanda's. "Wanda? Look, I've been trying to hunt you down all day because of what happened back there, and I wanted to talk about it. Can we just...take it down a notch for a second, this isn't easy for me either but I don't want you getting yourself hurt with this stuff. I'm not here to judge, okay? I just really, honestly, truly want to talk."
Wanda sighs in frustration, heading towards a bench to sit down and eat in peace. "What have we to talk about?" she says as she smooths out her jeans when she sits down. "It not bad enough that you defended those that would opress us, now I have to listen to your preaching as well?" She snorts and shakes her head, chewing on part of a meatball. "Your father, or whatever he is to you, was a more interesting conversationalist."
Talia opens her mouth to say something, but another word gets caught in her throat. Not expecting for Wanda to know that Kurt was her father, it forces her to take a different approach. She takes her seat on the bench and opens her food container once more.
"Yeah, well I was a part of the people that gave the vote to let those friends of yours go, even if that one that made me blind deserved to get my foot in his ass." Talia stabs her food with the fork, pausing for a bite. She swallows and looks back to Wanda. "Oh my god there's no way that I'm not going to come across as an idiot in this conversation, am I? You were always so capable of detecting bullshit. What would you say if I told you that, in a way, you and I had met before and that I was partly raised in Wundagore, too. That I spent summers travelling with the caravans all across Europe? Because I'm not here to preach, Wanda, I'm here to meet you and find out who you are, here."
"You were a part of that vote and I thank you for it," Wanda says curtly. "That still doesn't change what happened. Becasue we weren't able to complete our task, there will be mutant detectors available to be installed in hospitals. Offices. Government buildings. They can detect us so they can segregate us now. It will be under the guise of 'safety', but it's still opression."
Wanda sighs and sets aside her soup. "Just go ahead and say what you're trying to say. It's already obvious that you know me in whatever future you are from. I'm assuming that Kurt's freinds are more satisfied with your credentials of being his daughter from a future time, at least since you fought alongside them. So I'll play along. You know me in the future.So?"
"I'll tell you what I told them, Wanda. I told them that I'd rather there not be fighting at all but I completely and thoroughly understand why you were doing what you did. Where I come from I was part of a group of people that stopped people from doing stuff like that, but you and I both know there are people that are going to use that stuff to hurt mutants. It's just that whole when is it justified to break the law argument, you know?" Talia sets her fork down and brushes her hand over her face, frowning while she chews her bite down.
"Wanda, it's not the future. It's another dimension. Because of that some of Kurt's friends don't trust me any farther than they can throw me, and it's driving me crazy. So I thought..." She huffs, blowing her bangs away from her eyes. "...since you're my mother in that other dimension that maybe we could talk and I'd have, like, two people that understand me, or at least I could prove enough that they'd believe it and stop looking at me like I'm some Bond villain."
That certainly got Wanda's attention. She stares and blinks, the color drained from her face. "I'm...I'm your...your what?" She shakes her head, trying to clear out what was said. "YOur mother....you say I'm your mother. And Kurt is your...." The confused look gives way to one of anger. "What kind of a sick joke are you playing at here?"
"This was a stupid idea." Talia replies, setting her food aside. "Look, don't hold it against Kurt, okay? God I'd hate to cause problems for him because while he's technically not my //actual// dad, he's the closest thing I've got to family here. Oh you're so STUPID, TJ..." She leans back against the bench, staring up at the sky. Suddenly ashamed of herself, she exhales a long, angst-filled breath. "Wanda, it's another dimension, not here. It doesn't change anything that's //here//, okay? I'm just lost and I'm trying to reach out to people I know, who clearly don't know me, in hopes that if I'm stuck here maybe I'll have someone to talk to." She looks over to Wanda. "Think about it, Wanda. Did I once try to hit you? I could have blasted you like...three times that night and I didn't." She snorts. "Well, now you understand why Kurt's friends think I'm pulling a Lando..."
Wanda sees the pain in the young woman beside her. She doesn't like being a source of pain, even if it's unintentional. Her features soften and she reaches out to touch Talia on the arm, a faint hope flickering inside her that at least *somewhere*, she and Kurt found happiness. But there's only one way Wanda can think of to verify the story. "--If I am your mother,--" she says softly in Romani. "--Then what song did I sing to you to get you to sleep? Sing it.---" Unless things are vastly different, Wanda can see setting a child down to sleep with any song other than the one Marya sand to her and Pietro as babies.
Opening her eyes, Talia look to the hand on her arm and sits back up. Bringing her finger to the corner of her eye, she scraps away the hint of a tear, saving her mascara a little. --"I'm sorry I've got to be coming across like a psychopath."-- She admits, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She swallows nervously and looks away. --"There was this one you used to sing to me when my Father was away to help me keep calm."--
Talia starts to sing softly, her voice a low tone to keep people walking by from staring at them. Her voice has a rich tone to it, and she's careful enough to sing well always, a sign that she's had more than some vocal coaching. --"Children in the night...willow in the trees...the owl will always watch...and save you from from your dreams..."--
Wanda listens to the song, then reaches over to hug Talia. "--You remember it well--", she says with a sad smile. She sighs and closes her eyes. "Alright....I believe you. To a point." Wanda looks back at Talia and smirks a bit; she's willing to go out on a limb here, but there still need to be facts verified. Like DNA tests. "So," she says witching back to English. "I suppose I'm rather different than the mother you knew. I'm sure she's someone that matched Kurt Wagner's philosophical and moral views well."
Leaning into the hug with a squeeze, Talia eventually pulls back to her side of the bench. She turns on one hip to face Wanda, bringing her the blue knee that peeks through shredded jeans up in front of her to lean against. Her tail idly sways over the front of the bench. "Yes and no. I mean, Dad is a creature of conscience every time I've met him. My mother she's the harder one where he's more bendy, but my dad back home isn't as soft as Kurt here, either. The two of you taught me everything I needed to be a survivor and when something needed to be done, you never went together, just in case. He wanted to raise me Catholic, Mom wanted me to know the caravans. There were disagreements sometime about me learning certain remedies and rituals and when it was my turn to go to the caravans for the summer you taught me anyway, said it was for my own good. That I needed to understand the part of me that my dad wanted me to ignore." She shakes her head. "Sorry, I don't mean to say //you//. This is so weird for me, Wanda."
"Weird for you?" Wanda asks with a laugh. "You look to be only a few years yonger than me and you're my daughter. After a fashion." Her smile fades slowly as she keys on something else the girl said. "You had to be tough. To be a survivor. Things got worse in your universe, didn't they? The anti-mutant hate grew." It's not a question, it's a statement of fact. A vindication.
"It's weird all around, yeah." Talia laughs back, reaching behind her head to pull her long, black hair into a ponytail. Speaking for a moment with a hair-tie in her lips, her voice mumbles. "I should probably add that there, my mother and father are in their mid-forties. Why time moved different here, I couldn't say." She snags the hair-tie from her mouth and finishes the job. "And yeah, back there the mutant hate got worse. Bigger players got involved. My parents taught me to fight and I joined one of the teams they were on. Back there I guess I was just about to become a hero. I had a band. I had some pretty good times, but then I lost it all." She frowns again. "I'm not going to tell you what to think or try to guilt you, pulling some 'but I'm kind of your daughter' nonsense, okay? I just...REALLY don't know how to dive into the your way versus Kurt's way issue here yet."
Wanda nods, listening to the story. She picks her soup back up and starts to eat it. With a smile, she offers it to Talia. "Would you like some? I'm sure I would have made it for you...." She laughs and shakes her head. "I don't even know what your name is." She smiles and takes a deep breath. "Just tell me this...if you know about my history...did I start out like this? Fighting for mutants to be in control instead of waiting for humans to accept us over time?"
"I'm Talia. Or TJ. Talia Josephine Wagner." Talia replies proudly, reaching out with her three-fingered hands to take the soup from her. Carefully, she leans in and takes a small bite from the soup. Pointing at it a few times with the business end of the spoon, she offers it back. "That...is some good stuff. Mom's home recipe has a little bit more garlic. Anyway, yes, and I probably shouldn't answer, but yes. I wasn't there for it, but my mom and dad told me once that they met because they were on opposite sides of the picket line. He was on the 'mutants are your friends' side, and you were on the 'it took a whole lot of dead slaves until emancipation' side. So please, understand, I'm not going to preach at you. I get what you're saying, but by the time I was older things changed. I think you guys started to wonder whether or not they feared US."
Wanda smiles gently. "Thank you for the truth. I know this probably isn't easy for you, seeing two people you know as your parents fighting like this." She sighs and pats TJ's hand. "But no matter what path your parents took, Kurt and I have to walk our own paths." She looks away, up towards the peaceful clouds floating above. "How is he doing? Since the fight?"
"Right, in all fairness I need to remember that while you guys might be the same people at the core, you've had an entire life to become different. I mean, I didn't know where I was gonna end up. There's a chance you guys could be completely different. It's just that it's been over a year and I miss them. It was hard to stay away after I saw you." After her admission, Talia turns her back to the bench and stretches out, looking to the sky as well. "Kurt and I haven't gotten a chance to talk since. At least, not alone. I think he's doing okay. He just didn't want anyone to get hurt, and didn't want the cops to show up and blame mutants for all our drama, yanno?"
"I know," Wanda says with a sad nods. "Because he's a wonderful, noble man. And I do admire him for his principles. But I don't think they can work in the real world." She's quiet, thinking and considering thing. "And I'm sure seeing me in that facility broke his heart," she says quietly.
"No." TJ replies quietly, reaching out to touch Wanda's arm. "No, ma--Wanda." She blinks, correcting herself. "I think he's not too far from my dad, so if there's a shred of my dad in him? Oh no, his heart wasn't broken." She shakes her head, looking back to the sky. "No, if I know him at all like my dad, he's deep in thought and he's gonna suddenly pop up at the right moment and do the right thing, and nothing in the past is gonna matter. He loves people. That's his thing."
Wanda nods, again with a hint of sadness to the gesture. "I know he loves people," she says with a sad smile. "I'm just not sure he loves me after what happened." Wanda stands back up, patting Talia on the leg. "I should be going. It was...nice to meet you." She starts walking away, but turns back to face the blue woman. "And Tallia? Don't get in my way. THere's more behind this than you or Kurt know. I don't want to see either of you hurt. Or have to be the one to hurt you." With the warning delivered, Wanda starts walking away.
"Wait!" Talia suddenly shoots up, reaching into her pocket. It's amazing that there's any room in there, with how tight her jeans are. Pulling out a small pen, she rips the top off of her dinner container and quickly scribbles something onto it. Rushing back over, she stuffs the box-top containing her cell phone number into Wanda's hand and gives her a quick hug. She pulls back and gives her a pointed look. "Just in case. Okay? You don't have to tell me where you are, ever. Just be safe." As if ignoring, or simply not addressing the half-thread, Talia heads back to the bench and collects her belongings.
Casting once glance to the image of her mother, she lets out a quiet sigh and walks off in the opposite direction. "He's gonna kill me for this..."
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