Night at the sanctum... My apologies to for the late chapter; my workload sorta exploded for a bit there - I literally was not even in the country to make this update on time - but it should be back to normal next month. Sorry about that.
I dunno who owns Marvel nowadays - assuming Stan Lee (bless him) was the owner and not just the essence - but I'm gonna say Disney. Definitely not me.
TapTap
Wong was magicking up magical circles in the living room. It was 3 am, and Christine had literally only been awake because she was pregnant and needed to go pee at least once per night. She didn't mind so much - anything but morning sickness.
As she stood there, watching him... practise? She heard a telltale sweep of fabric, which didn't much bother her these days, and she was not surprised when she without further warning found herself outright cuddled in several yards of crimson fabric. Apparently the cloak had decided that she needed looking after. She didn't mind that either.
It took another few minutes, before a similarly soft sound barely warned her and she was enveloped from behind by Stephen's arms. The cloak made room for him.
"Concerned?" He asked, softly, so caring and soft-spoken these days, "or just curious?"
"Curious. Puzzled, perhaps, but not concerned," Christine leant back against him, sighing softly in contentment. "What is he doing? I meant to ask, actually, I've seen Elice and my former patient practising, but I didn't know if that was because they're beginners. Do you all... have some sort of training schedule?"
Stephen nuzzled her cheek softly with his nose, answering in a soft whisper which made Christine shiver in pleasure at the simple intimacy of it. "We all practise. I mean, much more so the beginners - The Ancient One used to hold group lessons out in the yard for this sort of thing - but it is a bit like the samurai in the end.
"At the worst of days, our skills are less for the beauty of it, or for the wonders we can make with them, and more about battle technique. Survival, at the end of the worst days. We do need to fight occasionally, much as that is easy to forget on an average day of studies or teaching. It does not do to lose perspective of that, or to let your skills gather dust. Not to mention," Stephen chuckled slightly, a sound low in his throat, his mouth now near Christine's throat, "a lot of our special talents are convenient as well. Why let something slide and have to take the tube?" Laughing, Christine dragged him back to bed and let Wong practise in peace.
The magical librarian waited until their door had firmly shut before he turned his Beyonce back on. They were mad if they thought they could sneek up on him - well, maybe not the cloak, he mentally granted as he spotted it up in the rafters.
They would have to de-dust that artifact a lot more often if it was gonna swirl around up there so much. Wong was not particularly bothered by this revelation.
But then again, that was why The Ancient One had picked him as the replacement for her dead former librarian. Nothing shook him. Nothing.
Not replacing dead former colleagues, not having to index several millenia of knowledge, not cocky formerly-medical-field new pupils, and certainly not pieces of red fabric which liked to fly about by themselves. Especially when the latter is on your side.
The cloak draped itself over the rafters and internally critiqued Wong's training regiment. And if the librarian found a little notebook on footwork with only one of the numerous poses having a foot circled in suggestion later the next day, well, then that was only his business.