Unexpected Companions
by Persephone
Chapter 9/10
Dinner was strange.
This wasn't exactly a surprise, but frankly, dinner was strange even for Limbo. The food wasn't that bad, though Nathan noticed that the aftertaste started before he swallowed now. It nearly choked him the first time.
He was also of the unvoiced opinion that escargot should not be served in melon rinds. Or live. He had eaten stranger things, but a giant snail that first tried to crawl off his plate (after he initially mistook it for a canteloupe) and then waved pathetically at him when he picked it up by the rind -- er, shell -- and turned it over... just didn't inspire him to stick a fork in.
He swallowed hard and surreptitiously put the creature on the ground beside his chair while his hostess was busy being scrupulously polite to the Illyana they had brought with them. It was a very correct, superficially friendly, hospitable in every practical way sort of courtesy with an underlying strained chill.
He didn't think they liked each other much.
#Of course they don't. They're both looking at might-have-beens.#
#We look at each other and see might-have-beens, Stryfe.#
A pause. #That's only supporting my argument, you realize.#
Nathan thought about it. #I guess so. I'd been thinking it might be territorial.#
#Us or them?#
#Them. I suppose you could make the same argument, though.#
#It looks like they're both doing fairly well, though.#
Stryfe caught Tyler's eye briefly by accident and looked away. #Each is doing well in her own way, I suppose. I like mine better.#
Cable had to stifle a laugh with a bite of something spinach-colored that tasted like oranges. #Somehow I'm not surprised. Which surprises me, come to think of it.#
#Care to explain?#
#I'm not surprised you like the one you're friends with better than the one who's apparently more experienced, more powerful, and more influential on Earth as well as in Limbo. It's strange not to expect you to prefer the latter.#
There was a long pause. #Illyana is the only ruler I have actually liked since I was... twelve.#
#I imagine Apocalypse would put almost anyone off.#
#Probably.# Stryfe chewed somewhat morosely on a piece of green bread. It wasn't moldy, just green. After a moment, he added, #Thank you for the save. I somehow doubt my alternate ever told you.#
Cable stared at him for all of thirteen seconds before recovering from the shock enough to behave normally. #I just nearly fell out of my chair.#
#That wasn't my intention.#
#Sure it wasn't.#
#Believe what you like. Nathan, do you think the giant snails are intended as food, ornamentation, or pests? This one is stealing my soup.#
The snail was indeed, with utter disregard for the fact that it had arrived at the table on a plate of its own, burying its head in Stryfe's bowl with every evidence of enjoyment. Or perhaps Nathan was imagining this, as he was hard pressed to specify any particular evidences a snail could give of enjoyment or particular behaviors this one was exhibiting that would qualify.
Well, the perceptibly falling level of liquid in the bowl might be one....
#I gather they aren't a normal feature of 'your' Illyana's dinners in Limbo, then?#
Stryfe was frowning in the direction of this phenomenon, but seemed to find neither the soup nor the snail sufficiently appetizing to do anything about the situation. #No, but then, I don't recall her ever giving a formal one.#
#I'm guessing, since they were brought in on plates and don't look especially decorative to me, that they're supposed to be part of the meal,# Nathan suggested after a short pause.
#Nathan, you wouldn't believe what some people think is decorative,# Stryfe thought back absently, still watching the snail eat his dinner with apparent fascination. #I noticed you seem to have disposed of yours via another route.#
So he hadn't been quite surreptitious enough. At least their hosts hadn't commented. #I felt sorry for it,# Nathan replied a little defiantly. #And while I've eaten stranger and significantly more disgusting, that was usually when there were no better alternatives.#
The frown had been replaced by a faintly amused smile, and the snail, having apparently exhausted the supply of free liquid, lifted its head with a chunk of some unidentifiable solid and waved it in the air triumphantly before, presumably, swallowing.
Nathan somehow doubted that Stryfe was being that entertained by the snail.
#Don't get so defensive.# Yes, Stryfe was definitely laughing at him. #However coddled you might think I am, I have foraged on occasion, although this bears more resemblance to something served as a delicacy. Except someone would have painted the shell, maybe....#
Painted the shell? #Did Apocalypse make a habit of serving live food at his banquets, since you have such a good idea of how it should be presented?# Nathan inquired a bit sarcastically.
Stryfe actually looked up at him for a moment, at that. #He did occasionally, but this wouldn't have been his idea. He didn't see any point to serving a live course unless it was likely to fight back.#
Nathan got a sudden mental image of a bizarre hybrid between a bullfight and a formal dinner, complete with matador.... Wait.... That couldn't explain the cape, could it?
His own soup had been unmolested by his snail, which couldn't reach it from under the table without heroic effort and probably not even then, so Nathan had actually been eating it. Stryfe gave him a very strange look when he started laughing and nearly spit it across the table in an effort not to choke.
#What?#
#Never... mind.# Nothing in Stryfe's expression or tone had indicated whether the image had been his doing or merely a bizarre creation of Nathan's own mind, and Nathan was not about to ask.
Stryfe picked up the snail by the shell -- or rind -- and turned it over, inspecting its underside curiously and, perhaps, a bit dubiously. #If it's meant to be food, I wonder if you're supposed to put salt on it?#
**********
The meal ended eventually, and the guests were graciously invited to spend the night.
This despite the fact that Stryfe eventually got bored with having his dinner stolen and -- wary of the consequences of eating something alive in Limbo, given the weirdness of the usual fare he'd tried there -- released his own snail under the table. This wouldn't have been a problem except that it and Cable's erstwhile serving proceeded beneath the furniture until they encountered one another and fought.
Melon-shelled snails could make a surprising amount of noise.
Tyler voiced everyone's thoughts and broke the slightly embarrassed silence resulting from the combat's discovery by commenting on how appropriate it was.
They were still asked to stay. In an actual building, in actual bedrooms. As actual as anything got in Limbo, anyhow. Nathan kept trying to shake the uncomfortable feeling that the entire palace was some sort of illusion and would dwindle away during the night to the blood-clot its building stones resembled.
They were kind of crystalline. Maybe it would help if he thought of them as ruby quartz, like Scott's visor.
No. No, that didn't help. Not at all.
Nathan shuddered and forced himself to concentrate on the immediate. Disrobe. Shower. The shower spouted hot water, not blood, even though the red tiles reflected in it. He preferred the wildly erratic color scheme the other Illyana had used to this monochrome dark red.
Something in the atmosphere of the place seemed to be getting to him. He kept almost thinking he saw Nastirh peeking around a corner at him. Nathan wondered whether this sort of paranoia and the feeling of having been blanketed in gloom was a normal product of Limbo or a function of his own state of mind. If the mood was intrinsic to Limbo rather than himself, he could see why Illyana and Stryfe chose to camp instead. At least Illyana. Seven years here was probably enough.
He found himself fighting a growing unease that had nothing to do with the decor. He finally pinpointed it -- he was expecting his belongings, or even more likely Stryfe and Illyana, to disappear on the other side of a shift-line, even though he hadn't felt one since they crossed over to this shift.
There shouldn't be any, should there? This was Limbo, after all.
Or was it?
If shifts didn't come to Limbo, then it stood to reason that they had at least entered this world on Earth. He didn't remember a distinct transition. This Earth was so strongly bound to Limbo, however, that he couldn't be sure.
Still, it seemed more likely that they were still on Earth -- which spoke volumes about this timeline's Magik and Tyler.
Illyana would know.
Nathan thought to himself that he was being quite silly as he methodically fit everything he had brought with him back into his pack. And that did mean everything, as their hostess had apparently conjured them all a change of clothes that they were apparently meant to keep.
As long as the garments didn't eventually reveal a predilection for spontaneously disintegrating, vanishing, changing form, sticking unnaturally, or causing a rash or worse problems, this was a good thing.
Then he picked up the bag and went down the hall and across a rather nonsensically placed indoor footbridge to knock on Illyana's door.
"Come in." It opened before he could touch it; in fact, it opened without anyone else in range to touch it.
Nathan blinked. Illyana was lying on her stomach on her bed, feet in the air, and Stryfe was sitting on the carpet as if he'd been talking to her until he turned to look at the door. Nathan rather thought Stryfe had been the one to open the door.
The bed was at the other end of an enormous expanse of floor.
"Nice room," Nathan managed after a moment. Could Stryfe have been thinking along the same lines he had, or had he just come in to talk to Illyana, and if the latter, was he intruding?
"It should be. She's royalty here, you know." Stryfe eyed him for a moment. "She did invite you in. Are you planning to stand in the doorway all night?"
"No." Nathan went in, closing the door behind him and feeling even sillier about his pack until he caught sight of Stryfe's. Maybe they had had the same feeling....
He carefully didn't step on the threshold. Remembered some old warning about that, and in Limbo, he had the feeling one never knew.
That reminded him. "Are we in Limbo?" he asked abruptly as he sat down on the floor. "Or is this Earth... like this?"
"We're on Earth." Illyana sighed and looked around the room. "A piece of it brought particularly close to Limbo, but definitely Earth. One reason I don't much like her solution, even if it has worked well... especially after the shifts started."
"I see." He looked at Stryfe. "Why are we collecting in here anyway?"
Stryfe shrugged. "Why do we ever put up with each other?"
"Good question."
"If you two start fighting...."
Stryfe looked up at Illyana. "We'll be good."
Illyana threw a pillow at him.
Nathan shook his head, blinking. Even with the rest of the world going mad, Stryfe being fondly teasing still tripped his weird-meter.
Stryfe fielded the pillow and kept it. Illyana grabbed another one -- half the bed appeared to be covered with them; Cable wondered how she was expected to sleep on it without knocking them off -- and flopped down on it. "You know, I could teleport both your beds in here. The building's pinned to Limbo in enough places that there probably won't be any shifts overnight, but.... Well, there's room."
This was certainly true. It was also true that from the shop talk on sorcery and Limbo over dinner Nathan had gathered that the "probably" meant that a shift through the palace was vanishingly unlikely (stepping discs, on the other hand, were a different matter). It was still furthermore true that he knew and Stryfe most likely knew that she was being nice and not pointing out that they both found the place creepy. Then again, she probably did too.
"That would be good."
"Thanks."
"Incoming," the girl announced calmly, and glowing white circles deposited the furniture in question neatly on the floor. Stryfe immediately took possession of the nearest one. Nathan eyed him. He looked smug.
After a moment's consideration, Nathan grabbed him and dumped him off the bed.
"Hey!" Stryfe yelped and climbed back on.
"I didn't promise to be good."
Illyana took one look at them as they paused, both sitting on the bed, to glower at each other, and burst into giggles. "WILL you two behave?"
"He started it," Stryfe pointed out. This failed to help her efforts to stop laughing and breathe normally.
"Oh, very mature," Nathan told him.
"And throwing me on the floor was?"
"It's you."
"Are you two making up for not having gotten to fight when you were, say, three or four?" Illyana inquired as soon as she could catch her breath. "Nathan. Over THERE." He looked at her for a moment without moving, then found himself swallowed by a stepping disc and deposited an instant later on the other bed. "I think that's the one from your room anyway."
A little more verbal sniping, a few trips to take advantage of the amenities of an actual building -- surprisingly modern in technology; it seemed incongruous given the general air of antiquated sorcery -- and they settled down in a sort of eerie half-light to rest.
**********
When Nathan opened his eyes, it was to a room bathed in an eerie low light. Not the blue-silver-gray that was normal for night vision, no, this was very distinctly tinted red. Like a darkroom... or maybe like what Scott would have seen through his glasses in dim light.
Scott's night vision had never been the best. Slym's had been better. Having to look through a layer of colored rock could do that. Neither one had ever seemed to have much trouble with even the brightest sun, though. Even in the desert....
He closed his eyes again and fought against tears.
"Nathan."
He tensed. "Stryfe." Just as well they were whispering; his voice couldn't give anything away.
Silence.
"Well? What?"
"Never mind."
He heard Stryfe move, and next time he looked over his clone -- clone's alternate -- had his back to him. Huh. "How trusting," Cable said under his breath, then pulled his pack closer to him on the bed and extracted the scryer from it. The film seemed to be remarkably durable, as Illyana had assured him the first time he tried to pack it, for all it looked like a milky soap-bubble; apparently the admonition not to touch it had been specifically for him.
The silver-white film almost managed to shake off the tinge of pink that the light tried to impart.
When he stared into it, he finally saw things in real color again.
It was a relief, at first.
**********
It hadn't been long since she first remembered being Magik that Stryfe found Illyana curled up in a chair with headphones on, staring at nothing. The book she'd been reading was being ignored, two pages waving almost straight up in the middle.
He crouched down beside her to listen. She had the volume turned too loud, he noted absently.
That might be why she hadn't yet noticed he was there.
~I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room
Safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me.~
Simon and Garfunkel. "I Am a Rock." A bleak song, overall. Not what she needed to be hearing.
He knew the CD, and reached with his mind to the controls to push it ahead a few tracks. "Bridge over Troubled Water" should be a considerable improvement.
Illyana twisted around to look at him indignantly, but burst into tears within the first few lines. Stryfe stood up and took a step back, wondering a little uncomfortably if she'd taken the lyrics as... a message of some sort, as if he meant them....
Not that he wasn't on her side, and so forth, but he hadn't exactly intended....
"Stryfe." Ororo's voice fell on his ears like ice, and he turned to face her with a speed that probably made him look guilty. "What have you done to her?"
"Nothing. Just switched the song she was playing."
"Why?"
"I... thought it would be a better choice for her to hear." He didn't need to be on the defensive; he hadn't done anything objectionable....
"It's all right, Ororo." Illyana popped her head up from her arms, tears on her cheeks and bright hair tumbling around the headphones as she pushed them down to her neck. She sniffed. "He was right. I was brooding." A wry smile. "His family has a nasty streak that way; I suppose he's good at diagnosing it."
"Is weeping preferable, Illyana?"
Illyana's face grew wistful. "Oh, Ororo... you don't know how hard it's been for me to cry, lately. And these are good tears."
**********
Not long after that, Illyana went running in the morning, spent a short stretch of afternoon in contemplation, and quietly got up very early the next day. She munched an apple and some peanuts she wasn't supposed to have in her room, went to the drawer where she'd secreted her old New Mutants outfits after hunting them down the previous evening, held up the white costume, and then quietly crumpled it back into the drawer.
Then she pulled on the old "bumblebee" uniform from her New Mutant days -- one nice thing about the material was that it was elastic enough to fit despite her body being less mature than the last time she'd put it on. One size fits all, I guess. She thought about teleporting, then decided against it and went quietly down to the Danger Room, sat down against the wall beside the door, and waited for her old teammates.
Cable was supposed to be taking over the day's training session, for the first time since his return, and had deliberately set it for an hour and a half earlier than Cyclops normally did. He was standing inside waiting for them thirty minutes before that when Illyana took a surreptitious peek through the observation windows and then ducked quickly back out of sight, but he hadn't been looking up.
She got up from behind the door as X-Force yawned through the door, drawing a few startled looks and greetings before they all made it through and she presented herself with them. Cable looked them over and halted at Illyana.
"What do you think you're doing here?"
It was an understandable question. It was also a very annoyed one. Illyana and Cable had not gotten off to the greatest start. She was eleven years old and considerably smaller than any of X-Force. And she was certainly not invited to the training session. It promised to be brutal.
She was looking forward to it, in a weird way.
"I want to train." Don't sound arrogant, don't sound arrogant! You know you're going to screw up at first.
Cable folded his arms and gave her a withering look. "This room," he pointed out sardonically, "is reserved at the moment. Go train somewhere else and stay out of my way."
"I meant I want to train with you." She glanced to the side, picking out Sam and Roberto before she looked back up at Nathan. "I was on the New Mutants, when that was a team."
"Kids. You were kids. They've grown up since then; you're -- actually younger than you were at the time. We aren't playing here, little girl."
Illyana bit down hard on her temper as it kindled; she hated being talked down to. "I know you aren't."
"If this is some kind of stupid joke --"
"Ah don't think she's joking, Cable," Sam spoke up quietly. "If she remembers being Magik, she remembers how to fight. Ah'd let her stay."
Cable gave Cannonball a long look. When his eyes snapped back to Illyana she thought of lightning. "You can stay -- just as long as you aren't a hindrance. You won't use the Soulsword. You won't get any special treatment for being small, young, weak, or inexperienced, and if you can't keep up, you're going to hurt by the end of the morning." He smiled coldly. "Actually, I expect you'll hurt even in the unlikely even that you can keep up. Still want to stick around?"
"Yes."
She stayed.
Illyana decided about twenty minutes later, about the time the seaweed peeled itself off the walls and tried to eat them, that Cable was afraid they might think he'd gone soft. Also that there might be something odd about the atmosphere on Graymalkin.
He changed environments on them until she lost count and made them run two missions of his own from the 38th century.
From both sides, "since you've all been spending so much time around Stryfe."
It was a very frustrating session for Illyana. She wasn't part of the this team -- she'd known that -- and while Sam did his best to incorporate her, no one quite knew what to do with her.
Except for Shatterstar, who saw the knife she'd brought in her hand and flipped his own swords into the air long enough to use her as a projectile before he caught them again.
It was cheating to use a spell to interfere with the electronics so that she sailed through the spot where she should have smashed against a force field protecting the image of a younger, armor-clad Stryfe opposing them.
She didn't care.
The flicker of expression on Nathan's face when she drove the knife between chin and metal collar was worth it. Seeing the flicker was worth the smashing blow she took for not paying attention.
She wasn't going to do it again, though. It missed the point.
Of course, the real Stryfe would never have let her get that close. Not in combat, anyway, she corrected herself. She'd spent a fair amount of time at closer range than that being read to. Of course, he might have been a little more reluctant about that if she'd been carrying a knife.
Teamwork in combat was a little tricky for her. Even the self-defense training she'd received in the last few years had focused primarily on how to protect herself when no one else was available to do so.
In Limbo... she'd fought alongside Cat. Hunted alongside Cat, too. Other than that, when she'd been able to do anything at all to protect herself and sometimes when she hadn't, she'd been on her own. When someone had fought for her there had rarely been anything she could do to help.
Maybe Cat was why she kept gravitating towards Feral. Style was different... but there was a certain disturbing similarity to Cat after Belasco tamed her mind.
The worst part, though, was exactly the problem she was doing this to remedy. She could see what she should be doing, but when it came to carrying it out... time and again, she failed. She was reasonably fit; she'd always been active -- but she didn't have the strength or speed or reach or endurance she remembered from the teenager she no longer was and wasn't yet. She was smaller and less hardened, and her muscles lacked the memories her mind had rediscovered and now expected of them.
So she fell too often, fell short much too often, and was knocked down when she shouldn't have been there to be hit. She picked herself up every time, half the time imagining she smelled the sulfur-ridden dirt of Limbo's wastelands across the burning in her throat and lungs. The sharp pain of bruises faded more readily under adrenaline than the deeper ache in muscles she continued to force through moves they protested, and sweat slicked her knife-grip and stung where she'd scraped her knee through the fabric.
Eventually, she started improving her estimates, recovering and clarifying what her abilities really were now and bringing her attempts within those boundaries. She learned. Painfully.
She still wasn't impressed. She rather suspected that Cable, who watched everything and everyone but still managed to make her feel his coolly assessing gaze on her every move and fault and fall, was even less so.
But she did better.
That, she reminded herself, gritting her teeth against pain and humiliation, was the point. Besides, this was mild. The monsters threatening to eat her if she failed weren't even real.
She'd gotten herself into it, too, so she didn't join in the semi-good-natured grumbling. The other reason for that was that she didn't think she had the spare energy to talk.
"End program."
The images winked out and Illyana stumbled as the solid-light rock she'd been standing on disappeared. It took her a moment to realize that Cable wasn't going to start up a new one, or maybe come in and play reverse-tag the way Magneto used to.
"That's enough for today -- or at least all we have time for at the moment, since the X-Men are taking over the room in a few minutes." He paced in front of them, offering up quick commentary, and stopped for a little longer in front of Illyana before addressing her.
She pushed damp hair that had escaped its ponytail off her face.
"I suppose you were useful after all -- there's always the chance of having to defend someone too stupid to remain on the sidelines where they belong. What do you have to say about your performance?"
Illyana took a deep breath. "I'm out of condition, out of practice, and haven't gotten used to the difference between what I remember being able to do and what I can really do now yet."
"I didn't ask for excuses."
"That was a list of things to remedy." She winced internally at how she'd snapped that, and tried to still the tiny muscle spasms making her tremble. "May I join you again tomorrow?"
Cable stared at her for a moment. "Same terms. If you can move." To all of them, "Out. Hit the showers."
**********
The hot water felt good, but Illyana was still dragging badly when she toweled off, realized she probably should have brought something to change into, and wrapped up in the towel to go back to her room. She should probably go walking after that. Something. Everything hurt; she didn't want to move, but she didn't dare succumb to the urge to lie still. Then she really wouldn't be able to move tomorrow morning.
Besides, napping in the middle of the hall was likely to give the wrong idea.
Head down, focused on the next step, she walked into someone large and solid. She looked up, blinking. "Oh. Stryfe."
"For some reason," he remarked with a faint smile, "I kept thinking you might stop." A pause. "Illyana, what happened to you?"
"I was training with X-Force." Almost to her own door. Move those feet. One at a time, not up to jumping. She managed a smile of her own. "Not... bad." Hand on the doorknob. "I'll get dressed again, see you later?"
It was so tempting just to throw herself down on the bed and not budge for the rest of, say, the month. No. She closed the door firmly behind her and put on the nice, comfortable, soft but sturdy clothes she usually wore, suitable for running around the grounds or even in public without attracting comment.
I didn't think I could cause that much of an abrasion on smooth floor through cloth. I'll have to remember that. The shorts displayed the red scrape on her knee quite nicely.
She straightened up from crouching to examine it and groaned quietly as her body complained about this proceeding. Walk. Maybe she could run around the grounds. Had she really felt this bad after Cat made her run all day? Running wouldn't help her arms that much, though....
Maybe she could climb a tree. An oak....
Tears stung her eyes.
**********
Illyana stopped in the hallway and frowned at the voices. Christopher and Nathan were yelling at each other. This usually wasn't a good thing.
They were between her and outdoors, too. She decided to treat that as convenient rather than ominous, and walked calmly toward the room.
"She's eleven years old, Nathan, and she is not and never has been part of your little fan club! You had no business --"
"X-Force is not a fan club and it was her idea."
"It -- what?"
"That's right." Both men swung around to look at her, and Illyana grinned despite the aches. They'd been too intent on their argument to hear her on her way. "He actually tried to talk me out of it, Chris, so knock it off. Besides, it was a good workout." She started moving again, through the room. She was not going to walk or move as if she was in pain. It took most of her pride to keep that resolution. "I'm going for a walk. Chris? Want to come with me?"
Christopher directed another decidedly unfriendly glare at Cable, and joined Illyana at the door.
"Where are we going?"
"For a walk."
"You said that," Christopher pointed out, reasonably enough.
"It's a walk. You go out and wander around and then come back, without necessarily having any particular path or destination other than to get back to where you started eventually."
Christopher halted and put a hand on her shoulder to force her to do the same. "Ah... are you upset about something?"
Illyana looked up at him for a moment and then smiled. "Not very. Tired enough to show it when I get sentimental over oak trees, but mostly just driven by the compelling feeling that if I lie down I'll never work the lactic acid out. At least not in time for tomorrow's session."
"Sentimental over oak trees?"
"I can't make an acorn that doesn't explode."
Christopher gave her a look which strongly suggested he suspected the conversation of no longer making sense.
Illyana smiled at him again and turned to start walking before it became excessively difficult. Keep moving. That was right. "I tried to, you know. In Limbo. It never worked. Ororo did it; she made it out of her power and her life, in defiance of Belasco's tainting her, and it grew into the one thing he couldn't destroy or turn of all she'd made."
"You said she trained you...."
"Exactly."
"Illyana."
"What? I became his apprentice. He couldn't destroy it. I... did."
"How?"
Not, Illyana reflected, the most comforting response. She would probably have been annoyed if he had tried to find one, though. "He cast me out for killing her when he wanted to steal her soul. He cursed me not to die and threw me into a blizzard on the wastes --"
"Cursed you... not to die?"
"Yes. Immortality with the ability to starve, freeze, fall ill, and take wounds left intact is a fairly potent curse, Chris."
"...I suppose so." He sounded bemused.
"I was thrown against the tree and used it for shelter and sustenance; I drew on it once too often, and the last acorn that blew up in my face drained it far enough that it fell and crumbled to dust." She closed her eyes. "After it withstood all else he ever tried."
"You don't think that was Belasco's purpose, surely...."
"Why not?" She closed her eyes as she walked, taking his hand after a moment so she didn't have to think about holding her course. She was so tired.... The memories were more wearying than the workout had been. "How should I know? But why not? I only know he didn't expect the sword."
"The Soulsword. That was when?"
"I realized that I didn't want what Ororo wanted. That was why it never worked. I didn't hold the beliefs she was affirming; I didn't want to make clean life to show he couldn't wholly take me. I wanted to cut the bonds he'd put on me. I wanted revenge. I wanted to kill him. So I made a sword." She opened her eyes again and let his hand fall. "He's still there. I won by not killing him, twice. Limbo won't let him die either, you see."
The released hand brushed over her hair, lightly. "Is there anything I'm really supposed to say here? Being comforting is not a skill I've much developed. I can sympathize, but my instinct would be to cheer you on, and that seems a bit inappropriate."
Illyana laughed suddenly. "This is fine, really. I appreciate you coming with me... instead of sticking to the argument with Cable."
Christopher allowed the subject change. "I am still quite sure he's to blame for something. Your claim to have instigated the whole thing does, however, complicate matters somewhat."
"I'd half expected you to stay just to avoid backing down."
"That's him, not me. He always used to take offense at my teleporting away from a conflict before he thought we were done." Illyana looked up in time to catch a smirk. "It was an excellent way to annoy him. Now where was it you planned to go?"
She shrugged, deliberately wriggling her shoulders against the soreness. "It was my idea. And I need to keep moving, after that." She smiled sweetly. "I thought I'd go climb a tree."
"...And you want me along for this?"
"You're good company?"
"What do you want me to do?"
She couldn't help laughing at his tone. He was probably thinking about her fondness for branches that didn't look as if they ought to bear her weight. "Walk with me. I don't care if you climb or not; I'll pick a nice sturdy one in case you want to."
"I could simply hold myself up telekinetically instead of relying on the tree."
"Either way."
Illyana was clambering high in the branches of -- surprise -- an oak when Stryfe, settled fairly comfortably in the lower ones, asked as neutrally as he could, "How did it go?"
"The Danger Room session? I was horrible. The New Mu... er... X-Force looks pretty good, though. Nathan didn't want to admit it, but I think they surprised him a few times. In a good way."
"They should have improved since he's been here. He shouldn't think he's that indispensable, and if he didn't expect anyone else to train them, I have to wonder about his claims of wanting to promote their survival."
"Be nice."
"This is me."
"I doubt he thought that. He'd still remember where they were before, though."
Christopher shrugged as she dropped onto his branches, far enough out that they swayed under her weight. "As you like. Why do you say you were horrible?"
"Because I was, of course. I knew I would be -- I'm just a kid next to them now, and I'm not in condition. Not like I... remember being."
"Of course you aren't. You'd been undergoing combat training before."
"By the time Cat got through with me, I could run all day and come close to defeating her with blades in the evening."
"That was when Cat got through with you. You haven't been being trained for that lately. You're nowhere near being fit to send out on your own, even if you'd have been about to come of age in my time." He sighed. "You could have asked me, you know."
"Asked you what?"
"To help you train." Christopher frowned at her. "Instead of subjecting yourself to Nathan."
Illyana climbed sideways to an adjacent branch so that she could get close enough to the trunk to hug him. He didn't tense the way she'd ignored when he first arrived. "Nathan doesn't like me. You do. I was afraid you'd be too nice to me."
He nearly spluttered. "I don't go easy on anyone."
"Then why be so angry that Nathan didn't?"
"He's Nathan. I don't like him -- he hates me -- and I don't trust him with you."
"He won't harm me."
"He would if he thought it necessary."
"Can't you say that of yourself as well? I hope so." Illyana shrugged.
"I would still teach you, if you like. More than just fighting. Don't worry. I won't be too nice."
"I'd still want to train with X-Force. If it doesn't bother them too much. Group-work was always the hardest to get used to."
"I know the feeling," Christopher observed pensively. "You could still train with them, I suppose. Of course, I'm tempted to take them on again at some point. Perhaps I'll steal you to be on my side...."
"We'll see." She laughed, then sobered. "And... thank you. I would like your help."
"Good. Hop down and let's get started."
Illyana nearly fell out of the tree. "Now?"
Stryfe smirked, swung down, and easily pulled her out of the branches to set her own the ground. "I did promise."
**********