I don't own these lovely characters other than the baddies I make. This story also makes nothing aside from the satisfaction of me and my readers.
Mystique and Azazel stopped at a little late night pastry shop in the town; it was quaint, quiet and cozy. The owners were an elderly couple, Mister and Misses Krovlavish who had gotten the shop from their parents and were now passing it down to their son, the generations of family put into the store was shown through the extremely old vintage décor of old Victorian wood furnishings and china tea sets.
The walls during the day time would have been a bright cheerful pastel rose lined with white but in the dark of night and glow of a few flickering candles set out by the owners for their tourist crowds, it looked more like a deep, velvety lavender, rather than pink and the white had lovely shadows casted over them, creating subtle arrays of grey.
There were not many people there, and those who were already dining decided it would be wise to finish their desserts quickly and pay the check without a word upon the couple's arrival. Few decided to stay, sharing hushed whispers and scared glances towards the owners begging them to do something about the red and blue skinned strangers.
One diner visibly paled when Azazel's tail swished into his view from its warm nest of clothing.
The owners though did nothing, for the old woman was hard on sight and the man wasn't willing to turn down a costumer regardless of how… Foreign they were. Their son, Bilan on the other hand knew full well about these two strangers in his little family run shop. There was no way he was going to let them just waltz in here as if they were equal!
The Russian pastry maker in training had stories read to him before about such beings, at first he had thought they were myth until many years ago a young boy he had seen on the docks. Demons truly did live among them, perhaps not the unicorns and elves he had been told about, but surely demons existed as he saw one with his own two eyes!
Bilan was wary, he himself knew that he was not to make a scene, as not to further disturb the other tourists and such, but he could sure as hell give those two a hard time. He walked over to Mystique and Azazel who had stripped off their coats in preference to the shop's warmth over the thick heavy furs.
They had chosen a banquet to sit in with a view of the town close to the window, and curled up there skimming the menu casually, as if not noticing the tension that they inflicted in the small eatery.
The two looked sickingly sweet, if they looked like normal humans Bilan would have thought this was cute, but he couldn't get over the tail wrapped around the blue woman's waist. Not to mention that the blue woman was now completely naked! If it wasn't for the scales that covered her indecency he perhaps could have had legitimate excuse to have kicked them out. "Surely, she must be some sort of succubus and he is a devil!" Bilan thought as he reached the two's table.
"Your orders?" He spat out, perhaps more irritation than he had meant to put in was heard in his tone of voice.
The red man he noted seemed to care less about how he was treated as he sat there poking his hat around the table, but the woman was, at least for a second hurt or angry, Bilan did not know which – as he was also unsure if a succubus could feel such emotions. Yet a shimmer of emotion flashed in her piercing yellow eyes, then nothing.
Like a true lady, she pushed aside what annoyance she had in order to enjoy her evening. She straightened up and turned to Bilan, looking him straight in the eyes, obviously purposely in attempt to scare him.
"Da, ya hotel by…. goryachiĭ kofe mokko , i on hochet…"(I would like a hot mocha, and he wants…" She looked over to her companion and turned back to Bilan, who held his pen to his notepad in anticipation with a slight look of confusion on his face that came naturally with tourists who likely learned the phrases of a book.
"i yemu pridet syalatte s karamelʹyu…. Pi….roz….h..noe? s kofe…..j….nym? bes…hem…e….lem?" (And he'll have a caramel latte with choux pastries filled with coffee bechamel…" She attempted pitifully, saying each syllable slowly and uncertainly while she dechipered each Russian letter.
Mystique felt Azazel's body jerk slightly beside her waist. Likely trying desperately trying not to laugh at her accent and confusion or trying not to cry at the desicration of his native tongue, Mystique could guess either.
The waiter wrote down the latte and the mocha and looked at them with a clean expression of irritation and confusion that should not have been apparent as he must have had to deal with hundreds of tourists daily.
"Ha, figures the demon people would not know such a complex language like Russian." He thought to himself in russian of course as Mystique whispered into Azazel's ear.
Azazel cleared his throat and got Bilan's attention. "Ona hotela skazatʹ , chto ya hotel by imetʹ Pirozhnoe s kofejnym beshemelem." He parroted with perfect pronunciation that only a person living in Russia since birth would have had.
Azazel could tell the man was surprised and Azazel himself wanted to be uncharacteristically smug about it and ask if he had a problem with his Russian or something of the sort, but he didn't get the chance as Bilan had walked away quickly without even saying a goodbye or confirmation that the order was heard.
Instead Azazel directed his gloating to Mystique who was obviously already angry at him for the copious amounts of mental laughing he had done. It was times like these that Azazel was truly thankful she was a shape shifter not a telepath, though much less useful in battle, so much safer to be around. Not that he would mind sharing his thoughts with the other. He settled for a smug smile at Mystique instead of his usual bout of suave poking, not wanting to ruin the moment.
After all they would probably go to a very American place one day, and though his English was rather good, it was still "cute" and "silly" how he sounded or attempted to pronounce words with random silent letters or ones that were just particularly long.
She smacked him a bit on the shoulder and grumbled something much like "Shut up." in attempt to mask her embarrassment. "Azazel?"
He looked over to Mystique who looked stunning to him at the moment, her blue skin painted into a midnight black with highlights of dark raven blue. Her hair lit with shades of orangey red to deep crimson by the flickering flames of the candle light. "Yes, Lyubov?" He responded as calmly and level headed as he could be – which was very, very calm almost stoic, but not quite as a undertone of tenderness still laid in its wake.
"What the hell did I just order?" She asked, un-jokingly as she simply chose thee pastry on the menu with little stars beside it and hoped that had meant "local favourites".
"You ordered two different types of coffee and a pastry. Don't worry it is good. I like it, so it's fine. It is like… A cream puff filled with coffee." Azazel explained.
"It is not an uncommon thing to eat in Russia, it is something like a classic afternoon treat, though one should not have it too often." He offered, trying to lengthen what would be for him a usually short question and answer conversation.
"Hmm, good. That waiter seemed a little unfriendly don't you think?" Mystique whispered into his ear, either trying to be seductive or secretive, at the moment both could have been plausible.
Azazel shrugged. "Small village, I'm sure they would be nervous if a Chinese person were to walk in here, most tourists here do not choose to come in the winter and most are from Europe or United States."
"Still he was a bit of a prick. And it's been ten minutes it's like he's purposely being slow!" Mystique said a twinge louder, and more aggressively, yellow eyes flashing a sliver of anger. Azazel said nothing, but hand his hand through her hair, which seemed to never deviate from the owner's style no matter how much he played with it. Perhaps it was a part of her mutation, if so she had a very fashionable mutation.
A few minutes passed more minutes had passed, filled with Mystique's observations of the little town and Azazel nodding or explaining something. Finally the waiter arrived with a small plate piled high with round pastry some filled to the point of spilling with a warm coffee filling. It had a light dusting of sugar and a drizzle of a caramel sauce poured on top of it, gently smudging the defined lines of the sugar.
Their coffees were put down after, a thousand, warm, kind kisses for the cold all contained in a small cup, both with a generous dollop of buttery whipped cream on top. Bilan had simple placed the food and drink in front of the two hastily and rather impolitely before rushing off to clean tables that needed to be cleared and such, trying desperately to keep his mind off the supposedly mythical creatures dining in the very room he was in.
All in all he thought he had done a rather good job in 'showing' the demon people that humans were no pushovers, though on the other hand they seemed rather content regardless of what he did. Bilan thought about this as he watched through the corners of his eyes Mystique sipping on her mocha, saucer held to her body and lips blowing a soft current of air and Azazel drinking his caffe latte as if he had just woken up… With his tail, and plucking out one of the choux pastries with the tiny dessert forks provided with the order.
He thought that they had looked rather human, almost normal. On a date, like any other person, feeding each other like any couple would and they apparently felt cold just as any man or woman – all three things those mythical tales Grandmama, and Papa had not told him about in his childhood.
The two finished their meal quickly, warmed up and filled with rather fattening sweets they paid the bill (probably Erik's money) and put on their coats, being the last patrons of the day the shop closed as they left, the older couple cleaning up their cups and Bilan leaving to "meet with friends".
Mystique and Azazel walked through the houses of the small village, for a very small village, all of the houses were on the large size, perhaps made many decades ago for large families of farmers and fishers. The gardens would have likely looked gorgeous in the summers, without all of the snow piled on either side of the drive way. Fifteen or so minutes into their little stroll Azazel decided to stop the both of them at an intersection with a rather distinctly large tree to stargaze.
The two stood there, Azazel's tail wrapped up under his coat not quite appreciating the weather and his arm wrapped around Mystique's waist linking his hand into her pocket. While the two were looking at the small shimmering gems in the night sky, a sudden sound resonated through the night sky.
"Azazel… Did you hear that?" Mystique asked, hoping the sound was simply a figment of her imagination.
"Yes. I did, it seems to be coming from behind us…" Just at that moment the sound became louder, more urgent and desolate.
It was a shriek, that of a wounded animal, pained and hollow. Yet, no one came out of their houses to check what this horrifying sound was. Mystique thought to herself, "And I thought people were supposed to be empathetic!" Yes, empathy, a word that has lost its meaning in the midst of hatred, greed and prejudice.
Mystique and Azazel ran towards the noise as it became more frequent, more pained, but quieter, as it was masked by rounds of angry yelling and cheering.
What the two saw disgusted Mystique, enraged her. Azazel on the other hand looked on as if it were a fact of life. Seeing this from her lover made something snap in her, it was horrid, seeing her mate simply accept that THAT was normal and what society had put out for their kind. That someone who had very strong beliefs in rights and equality, reduced to being a bystander of a small boy with a rather normal mutation, nothing that human kind has not seen before, small scales lining the body much like an alligator.
Seeing the size of the mob, the two understood why no one had come out to investigate the noise. The whole damn village must have been here attacking the scaled boy. That unabashed screaming he made each time a villager's torch flame licked at him or was struck with a wooden plank.
Suddenly Mystique broke in to a fevered sprint, as she saw Bilan rile the crowd further as a group of older boys continued to beat the bloodied boy.
Mystique shifted into a beastly creature and growled out, "You want to fend off demons? Well now you have one!" She charged forwards with an inhuman growl quickly disposing of several of the attackers, dead or unconscious she didn't know or care at the moment.
She threw punches in blind rage and used all of the hand to hand moves she had practiced, pulling many fatal blows, a knee to the head; kick to the stomach perhaps a jumping strike for the larger, beefier people.
She easily knocked out woman and teenagers who thought they could take her. The remainder of the villagers with any common sense fled the moment the blood of their own kin stained the snow. It was all over in a minute, Azazel simply missed out on it as when he had decided to move there was only one person left in the crowd, aside from Mystique, the mutant boy and himself.
Mystique gripped Bilan's neck in her hand, her sharp nails digging into his skin as her firm muscles contracted quickly, delivering a wave of light headedness to the man.
Mystique switched back to her own form. "I want you to see who will kill you and you will be an example to the rest of your people – not just those of your village, but the world. We won't we pushed around anymore." She hissed at him like a viper, deadly and low as she went in for the kill.
Before Bilan could utter out a word – though he likely could not have seeing as Mystique's grip was so damn strong the man could so nothing, but weakly claw at the hand taking his life away slowly and gasp for air.
Suddenly pain blossomed in Bilan's stomach as Mystique used her other hand to strike him right below the diaphragm. She let go of his neck and let him bend over and curl on the ground. She scoffed at the man at her feet, at her mercy and then stomped the heel of her snow boots through his head. "I'll see you in hell bastard." She spat.
She turned to Azazel who kneeled by the mutant boy, two fingers on his neck. Azazel stood up and shook his head sadly. There was no point in teleporting to a doctor; the boy was already long gone from blood loss. The white snow around them was soaked in blood and was freezing into ice already. The peace of the village had settled back in, but in a bad way as there was still carnage all around them.
The stars still twinkled above, though fading into a melting dawn. The two as they breathlessly made clouds of white above their heads. Mystique turned to Azazel. "Thanks for taking me out here. It was amazing. Now let's go home." She said sadly, silently mourning the death of the mutant boy, whose death vaguely hit her close to the heart.
Azazel knew better than to argue with Mystique when she did command him. He pulled her into an embrace and let the air shift around him as he teleported the two of them back to the entrance Brotherhood compound. It was late evening as they arrived back from Russia Azazel curled up in bed with Mystique – an action that has become very habitual for him as of recent.
As he laid there he too mourned, but not for the blood spilt in Russia that night, but the death of Raven Darkholme, but at the same time welcomed Mystique. Just Mystique, like he was just Azazel.
He waited until Mystique had fallen asleep before climbing out and actually walking to his own room. He hung his hat on its spot on the bedpost and went to rudely awaken his two fellow ex-Hellfire Club members (an organization that Azazel now realized sounded a bit like a child's secret tree house).
He gathered to two and in his tow teleported them to the small town of Kashin, Russia where tonight, ten men, seven woman, a litter of children and one mutant boy had been slaughtered in the name of mutant rights.
Emma and Janos paced around the pile of dead or groaning people, making sure to finish off anyone Mystique didn't. They nodded to each other and turned to their colleague, "She did this?"
Azazel did not say a yes or a no, though it was irrefutable that his lover did indeed do this with no help from him, instead he only said, "The problem is fixed." Azazel stated.
Emma and Janos accepted this and began disposing of the bodies in the river.
My box – Hey everyone! Sorry for taking a while. I figured I wanted to finish this sequence. School is starting soon and it's time to get back into my work schedule, aka no more working late nights writing stories.
Sigh… but on the bright news I get to see all my friends and have constant muses for my writing, as today's was rather morbid I want a happier chapter later on. I'm only doing main events of her life, so I'm not going to go for long tidbits of events that don't quite interest me.
Thank you Sheherazade's Fable and Katie for reviewing and showing me some mistakes! ;) Your critiques and suggestions have been noted and worked in! :D
A la Prochain!