calmbeforethe | 00 . appointments

00 . appointments

If you would like to have your character(s) interact with Ororo without having to post a separate entry or log, feel free to comment here! This entry can be used for any threads that might not warrant the need for an entirely new journal post.

Action, voice, log or written threads all welcome! Please include what kind of thread it is in the subject header, as well as some kind of indication of date or time like so:

[Action, July 4th]
[Voice, before Storm leaves for the draft]
[Written, October 31st]

Thanks!

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Ororo was astute enough to detect the urgency in Rogue's voice. She frowned, concerned. "Is everything all right? Did something happen on the mission?"

"Yeah." She bit her lip. "Look, you can have some time ta wake up an' all. I mean - I'm all right. I just..."

The fear and panic and - Gawd - longing was hard to suppress. She tried to swallow it down.

"I just need ta talk about it."

Which was very, very hard for her to admit. But there wasn't anyone else she'd be able to trust to take this to as much as Ororo. The older woman might not get Rogue as Logan did, but there was still a lot she wouldn't have to explain. Ororo had still come for her. She was family.

If anything, Rogue's tone, demeanor and choice of words only serves to snap Ororo into being fully awake and alert. After years of short notices, something like this was enough to get Ororo ready to jump into action at any moment. After all, when an X-Man says they're "all right", it's absolutely fair to think that they really aren't.

She shook her head, stepping out into the hall and set one hand on Rogue's shoulder.

"It's no trouble, I am awake enough as it is." She looked around the hall. "Would you like to move into the kitchen, or the sitting room?"

"The kitchen." She bit her lip, not shrugging off Ororo's hand. That was okay, that touch was okay. "I've got the coffee on."

She felt like shattering.

"To the kitchen, then."

Ororo took the initiative to rest her hand between her shoulders and gently steer her towards the kitchen, once she realized Rogue wasn't shrugging her touch away. That was curious. Almost alarming.

What on earth could have happened?

They were halfway to the kitchen before Rogue took the necessary step faster in order to get Ororo to drop her hand. Careful. Always so careful. She can't afford to be anything else...

But right now she wished that wasn't the case more than anything in the world. Once in the kitchen, she went to check on the coffee. It wasn't done yet.

I'm not sure there's enough coffee in the world ta fix this mess.

She took a deep breath and turned around to face Storm, jumpy and unable to sit.

"I screwed up," her eyes were haunted and she just set it out there. "I made a bad call."

Standing is perfectly fine, and the coffee will still be there later. Ororo folds her hands together calmly, though her eyes tell a different story.

"We don't know that yet. Tell me what happened."

"I'm pretty sure we do," but the retort was without any real offense behind it. She ran gloved hands through her hair simultaneously in a rare movement of total frustration and loss. "Loki was on the mission with us. So I sat down with him early on ta have a chat. Just - tryin' ta get a feel for what he could do, how I could work with him."

As Ororo knows full well, this wasn't the first time that an X-Man had to work with an enemy. But at least with their own enemies, they knew how the other fought. Loki had just been a giant question mark.

Ororo nodded, understanding. It was a smart thing to do, better to have some knowledge on how an enemy thought than going into things blind. Her only protest would be that Rogue went about it alone.

"You spoke with him by yourself? What did you talk about?"

"I had coffee with him. In the cafeteria."

So there were people around, it wasn't like she'd dragged him into an alley for a chat. Again, that uncharacteristic movement of soothing both hands through her hair, holding her white bangs back behind her ears before her hands dropped down.

"We talked about- Gawd-" it seemed so long ago, "I asked about his powers an' we discussed the mission..."

She shook her head, not having held on to the details in the light of everything else. "He told me 'bout his ability ta transform things, make an illusion - I made a crack 'bout how if it worked, I'd have asked him to fix my hair."

Edited 2012-09-27 06:34 (UTC)

" 'Fix' your hair?" Ororo tilted her head to one side, glancing at Rogue's two-tone locks. There's nothing wrong with it, in her opinion. But back on topic: "He is capable of such a thing? What did he do?" She frowned. "Did he hurt you? Or say anything particularly," She paused, searching for an appropriate word, "threatening?"

"Gawd, no. It wasn't like that. It was..." it was so much scarier than that. So much worse, because it had been so casual.

She moved away from the counter to sit at the kitchen table. "The mission had ta be undercover, an' my hair won't take dye. No matter how many times I tried, hours later and it's faded."

There. A rare personal glimpse into Rogue's life before the X-Men. It would normally be something she'd be hesitant to share, but she'd left the implication with Loki - how much more would she tell Storm?

"An' people... recognize me by my hair, Ororo. I could have requisitioned a wig, but when he said he could make illusions it just - seemed like a thing ta say. And then he took me up on it. And I didn't wanna back down, because... well."

Because she doesn't back down. Because what would that say about her offer of working with him? Because then she'd get to see a demonstration of his magic up close, without it hurting anyone. But she just shrugged.

"But it turned out... that an illusion wasn't what he had in mind."

Ororo followed Rogue over to the table, stopping only to pour her a cup of coffee and take the sugar and creamer from where they sat on the counter. She nodded along while Rogue spoke, gave her a sympathetic smile for her dye troubles (her own hair, as blank a slate as it is, did not take to dye too well either), but did not say anything noteworthy yet. She figured it was best to let the younger girl finish saying everything she needed to say before she would add her two cents.

"And what did he have in mind?" She set the cup of coffee before Rogue with a businesslike click and took the seat next adjacent to hers.

"He said it was the simplest way. I'm guessin' it was some kind of... shape-shifting or transformation. But in order ta do that, first he had to..."

She glanced down at the table. Saying it out loud made her feel ashamed that she'd let it happen. It had seemed pragmatic at the time. It had seemed important. But now she was admitting that she'd stood there and let a god of lies who'd been responsible for hundreds of deaths on earth...

"...touch my hair. He said he couldn't change something he didn't know."

Ororo sat straighter, a little alarmed at what that implied. As far as she knew, Rogue's powers did not come into play if one touched her hair - but that didn't mean anything. He could have slipped, accidentally touched her forehead... Did she absorb him? How long ago did this happen? Who was she talking to, did Rogue have his psyche in her mind now?

She put a lid on her questions for now, knowing that they would only confuse the situation further. She does, however, put her hand over Rogue's gloved one in concern.

"Did he, touch you...?"

"I know it wasn't smart. And I could have said no."

She turned her hand up, grasping Ororo's in return for a moment.

"But it didn't feel right. So I warned him not ta touch my skin an' then..."

She trailed off. And after a moment, she withdrew her hand. She felt small and ashamed and sick.

That pause doesn't bode well at all, and sent all sorts of worried alarm bells through Ororo's mind. She can see that Rogue needed to take her time with this, but she can't help but worry more if she words things like that.

"And then, Rogue?" She asked, gently. "It's all right, you can tell me. And then I will help you. Just like always." She gave her a reassuring smile.

Rogue shrugged. It was a pathetically resigned movement, far more fluid and loose than her usual control. "He did some magic."

How many times had she wished for a cure? For something magic to take this whole thing away? For something that would let her be a person, a normal person, not a walking Venus flytrap.

"It took him less than five seconds. He protected his hands somehow, so that when he touched me by accident - nothin' happened."

Nothing at all.

"Nothing happened?" Ororo had to repeat that, as strange of an occurrence as it was. "And you're sure of this? That he didn't do anything else when he touched you for this... illusion?"

Suddenly afraid, Rogue looked up at Ororo, "Why? What do you think he did?"

Ororo clasped her hands together. "I am not saying he did anything. But my knowledge of Norse mythology is shaky at best; all I know of Loki, the god of mischief, is that he is capable of a great many spells and magic. Often for his own gain, or to start... mischief, as his title implies."

She glanced down and spoke slowly, "Ororo, he offered me a truce. I don't think he broke it. I think I'd know if someone was messin' in my mind, after the wall the Professor put up. An' I don't... feel any different."

She shook her head. No, it had been too personal. He'd offered her a truce. But then, she'd been fooled before, and trusting the god of lies to honor something was as foolish as turning her back to Mystique, but...

"The truce felt real."

But she remembered how scared she'd been, after it was all said and done, realizing that he'd offered a truce and broken it off. Time might have shaken her surety, especially in the light of her spotted history when it came to mind control and trust, but... she had to trust her own impressions, at least, or else what did she have?

Ororo was silent a few moments, mulling over Rogue's words carefully. Finally, she nods, conceding that Rogue knew her mind better than anyone else, despite all the psyches she had with her. Still.

"If you say so. I trust your judgment, Rogue - it is just. Well, one can't be too careful here in Luceti, especially if what we have heard of Loki as any truth to it all."

She gave Rogue a concerned glance. "How do you feel?" Physically she was all right, but Ororo knew that this must have been quite a stressful ordeal for her.

"Shaken," she admitted quietly, glancing down. "I had ta put it past me there, but people don't just... touch me. I can't afford ta let 'em, even if they would."

An expression of pain and self-contempt crossed her face, "An' of all the people who could do it without gettin' hurt, it has ta be him? When Tony was countin' on me ta find a way to take care of things if it all went south? An' he did it so quickly."

All I've ever wanted... from a man who's more of a monster than I am. What does that say about me?

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