In Our Mystic Visions Blest
She had her concerns, not entirely about the girl, she was the least of their worries, but about the people that Sara was gathering. For a girl on the run, the Abbey, haunted as it was by the deep magics and the residual sadness of what had taken place in Salem all those many years ago, seemed a bad place to seek sanctuary.
Illyana had been one of the first Sara had suggested, the first to trust her and follow where seldom few had trod before, and yet as the halls had filled with others who had answered the call, others who likewise had a stake in ensuring the goals of Lilith, mother of monsters, were never realised, it seemed to Wanda that the younger girl remained cautious, an outsider amongst outsiders.
She sighed quietly, careful to ensure it was not heard by the old woman standing with her back to her, the diminutive shape of her former mentor's lover. There was a gulf of pain between Sara and Wanda, a river of recrimination and blame. She knew that the older woman could never forgive Wanda for her part in the death of her lover.
She smiled tightly, a bitter smile.
I don't need you to hold me responsible, Sara. I can do that myself.
There was no love lost between her lover's mentor and the teenage girl that had taken up residence with them. Quick to call the affair a 'coven,' Sara had pushed hard for Wanda to take the younger girl in hand, to forge her notable affinity for magic into a tool that they might use to frustrate Lilith's intentions—Illyana Rasputina had had other ideas, making good on her promise that she 'did not do teams.'
Yet, for all her waywardness, the girl remained, and for that, Wanda was thankful, grateful even. The others however, well, there were some of those she wished would take a hint.
From the summons Sara had sent out into the æther had come an uncomfortable assortment of gods and monsters, each bringing their own skills and vices to the Abbey.
Under Agatha's tutelage, Wanda had thought she had seen every kind of arcane art, and had seen what such magics did to its practitioners. Likewise, she had thought she had known of every costumed hero that might have responded to the call, but swiftly, she found herself reconsidering the breadth of her knowledge.
Some were recognisable, familiar to her during her time as an Avenger, and, before that, a member of her father's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Wolverine, the man named Logan's immortality was the world's worst kept secret, it surprised her not in the slightest that both Agatha and Sara had long known of him; Spider-Man was familiar to her from both the continual stream of bad press that seemed to follow him, and from her experience as an Avenger—and yet she could not have prepared herself for the companion he brought with him, a hulking robot named Gears, his red, blue, and white paint soon washed over in the black and gold of the uniforms Sara seemed to favour for her protégés.
If one robot was not enough then another had soon joined them, his own red, yellow, and blue paint swiftly exchanged for black and gold also, a former wrestler of all things, an ally of Gears named Roadhandler.
From the depths of space had come the bounty hunter, Abslom Daak, bedraggled and barely human, his chainsword ready to cut through any foe, his antagonism of anything remotely like the foes that had taken his beloved in their invasion of his world leading him into frequent confrontations with the two robots now on their team.
After him, from so far beyond the stars that Wanda could not understand many of his mannerisms, came the self-proclaimed Dark Lord, a terrible figure named Darth Vader, the man buried in his armour, his breathing sharp and rasping, the shimmering red glow of his lightsaber and his command of elemental forces so complex that they might as well have been magic.
From Asgard had come her fellow Avenger, the mighty Thor, the weight of his sacred hammer, Mjölnir, never far from his reach. Whilst from Earth had come the deposed prince of Edenoi, Dex, the Masked Rider, and, alongside him, a young and cautious man named Tommy Oliver, his enchanted emerald armour bequeathed him by a witch and fashioned in the likeness of a dragon.
Was there common enough cause amongst them to truly make them a team? Would they truly be able to turn back Lilith and the devils that she brought forth daily?
She felt a hand upon her shoulder, and she jumped, turning with surprise to find the younger woman behind her, dressed in blue jeans, a faded yellow tank top, an encircled 'X' upon the chest.
"You are worried?" she asked.
Wanda smiled. Serendipity, they called this.
"About you, actually," she smiled, and when Illyana did not smile back, she felt momentarily saddened. "I was waiting for the right moment to check in with you, to make sure you were all right."
At last, Illyana smiled, and with her hand still on Wanda's shoulder, she gently shoved her, forcing her to turn around, to look once more at Sara, hunched over a number of mystic tomes, the light of stereovision screens washing over her.
"Perhaps it is not I you should be worrying about, Wanda, but rather your bumer over there having her senior moment."
Once more, Wanda smiled.
"Oh, you know, maybe you're right."
"Perhaps with robots and space warlords at my command, I might be having a senior moment too," Illyana remarked.
She didn't mean to, yet Wanda found herself laughing.
At the sound, Sara looked up from her work and turned to glare at them.
Illyana patted Wanda on the shoulder and stepped forward.
"Come, we will get nothing done if we leave this management issue to the bumer."
Still smiling, Wanda Maximoff followed her young ward, the two women making their way across the floor to where Sara's books lay stacked, their shadows long behind them in the glow of candles.
Outside the Abbey, held at length by the deep magic that filled the grounds, events within the real world continued to unfold, the evening primrose blooming only in the dark.