Post by Gambit on Jan 23, 2007 15:45:58 GMT -5
Heart pounding like it's going to burst...blood in eyes from cut on head...limbs aching from the running...
Remy LeBeau crashed through the treeline of the woods that backed onto the mansion, dropping to his knees and trying to catch breath that burned like fire in his lungs. He was no longer in fear of the chase: the latest Hunter had been eliminated. But it had been close. Too close this time.
He was losing the advantage now. They knew all his moves, were prepared for everything he (sometimes literally) threw at them. Slowly but surely, they were working him into a corner and the fight was leaving him. He'd got out of this encounter with his life and his integrity intact. But had it been a few minutes longer...
Remy took several more breaths and his heart rate began to slow, the pain in his chest to subside.
The Scarlet Witch sat on her knees between two bracken ferns that hadn’t been touched in the many years the woods behind the mansion had been left to grow wild. Just at their roots were sprouting several dozen tiny white mushrooms. Having spent the last few hours walking between the trees-lingering in the little alcove Remy had once taken her to- Wanda had come across the newly grown psychedelics and decided to pick a few to take to her associates in the Golden Dawn out of San Francisco. It seemed as likely a place as any to go now that she’d worn out her welcome at the mansion.
After Pietro had sped her away from Charles’ school after that disastrous meeting with Remy, she’d made her quiet, meandering way back there against her brother’s advice. It wasn’t so much that she had any intention in returning. Wanda rarely had an intention at anything; coming back to the school was as natural as a moth finding it’s home near a flame, or a pigeon returning to its master. Her master for the moment was a whim beyond her full reckoning, a feeling lingering, leaving tendrils around her thoughts, causing her to wake with a man’s name on the same place his lips had fallen just a week before.
Unbeknownst to her- as many things seemed to be- Wanda’s chaos orb had surrounded her with a faint blue halo echoing a good six feet in any direction, glittering slightly as the sun hit it, making the area around her look as if seen through and old television set. Things grew around her, extra leaves on the trees, shoots of grass peeking from the ground. Not so much that anyone would notice as they passed, but an extra look told the tale. Fortunately for Wanda, no one was about.
She heard the noise of falling, stumbling footsteps only as an afterthought. “When honey spills, and apple swells, though wind be in the West,” she recited under her breath, “I'll linger here beneath the sun, because my land is best.”
His breath was still somewhat ragged in his lungs despite the fact that the panic was subsiding. He was most definitely not unfit, yet he had been running for so long that he had all but exhausted himself. Passing a shaking hand across his eyes, he stared dully at the blood that came away with them.
It was then that Remy noticed the glow. It was then that Remy's panic began to rise again. It was then that Remy got slowly to his feet and began to inch towards the direction from which the glow emanated.
When he saw who it was, he could have collapsed with relief. Instead, he remained where he was, respectful of her apparent state of meditation. He had, after all, grown up with a voodoo woman who had never hesitated to slap him upside the head if he'd disturbed her.
He was surprised – but not displeased – to see her back. He leaned against a tree, more for support than in any effort to look remotely cool – and waited.
It took quite a few long moments before she lifted her head, looking not around at the noise he’d made or in search of something, but directly at him, as if she’d known who was there all along.
A flickering smile crossed her perfect features, like a butterfly deigning to land on a rose, but only fleetingly. Wanda’s emotions were just as fickle.
“Hunter,” she said softly in greeting. “What brings you back to the wood.” She noticed the blood on him, but assumed it was nothing- for all she knew it was an illusion. One she could smell, and wanted to touch, but knew better than the move from where she was.
After all, the man standing there could be an illusion as well.
"The Hunt," he replied, simply. "It continues, Scarlet. An' I ain't so sure I can keep it goin' for much longer."
With a shaking hand, he reached into his pocket and took out his cigarettes, discovering that virtually the entire pack had been smashed during the fight. He took one out anyway, snapping it in half and pocketing the filter end before lighting it. Taking a long, deep draw of it, he stared up at the fading half-light.
"An' I could ask…what brings th' Huntress back to th' wood?"
“The same,” she said, playing on words as easily as speaking truths. “But if you’re tired, come take a rest with me.”
She stood, the little pile of white mushrooms left behind, and brushed her hands. The thick crimson of her cloak drew on the plants around her and the blue faded. She walked towards him, feeling the chaos she lived in change somehow just for his presence. It snapped her back to the here-and-now, reminded so readily exactly who he was.
“I ran,” she said, reaching up to slowly draw her thumb through the drying blood beneath one of his eyelids. The color so closely matched her dress.
"Oui," he said, wearily. "Oui, I am tired now y'mention it." He finished the half of cigarette that he was smoking and did his usual trick of flicking it into a little smouldering heap of explosion. When she touched his face, much of the flow of panic ebbed noticeably and he closed his eyes.
"We all have t'run sometimes, cherie," he said, quietly in response to her words and reached up to catch her hand and bring it to his lips, kissing her knuckles softly. "Sometimes y'gotta run to, other times y'gotta run away. Whatever reason that both you an' I are runnin' - for now at least we get respite, non?"
His exhaustion seemed to catch up to him and his knees buckled.
As if in perfect tandem- for all their juxtaposition it should have come as more of a surprise- Wanda stepped to him like a dancer, slipping her arm around his torso and pressing herself to him, letting him lean on her. She kissed his forehead with the gentlest touch.
“It’s too dangerous for me to make us shelter here,” she said, double entendre laced so thick she might not have gotten it out of her mouth if it weren’t for the truth of her words. “But I can take you inside Charles’ house, if you wish.”
She found herself wanting to kiss him again as she had last week, only, she was too afraid to find out what would happen when she did. Instead, she let his forehead rest against hers, and looked up at him with her brilliant blue eyes.
His arms came round her and he embraced her tightly for a moment. The woman fascinated him like no other - and there had been many - that he had known. She spoke in a way that fired him up and yet there was almost an innocence about her which was at one and the same time just as attractive.
"I should prob'ly get this wound dressed an' cleaned up," he conceded. "If y'could see y'way fit t'gettin' me back inside, that would be mighty helpful indeed. An' are y'stayin' around any this time?"
He couldn't disguise the hope in his voice.
Setting a hand against his stomach, she turned and walked with him towards the mansion. Her voice when she spoke was almost a whisper, as if to communicate with just her tone that she was hiding. “I broke their windows, the windows in your room,” she said. “They are only windows, but I’m certain they won’t look kindly on it.”
Then her voice did drop to a whisper. “I will stay where you wish, if you wish me too…” she suddenly sounded more than half her age, a young girl offering herself hopefully.
As they came to the treeline, she looked up at the mansion and her expression shifted only slightly, taking on more of the Empress he met not too far in the past. “You killed him, didn’t you.” She looked aside at him, then started across the lawn with her arm still around his back. “The one who came for you.”
He physically cringed at her gentle words. "Oui," he said, bitterly. "I killed him. It came down to that. Him. Or me. An' I've got sort of attached t'livin', y'know what I mean?" It hadn't been a quick death, either. It had been slow strangulation, something that Remy despised doing, but which had been his only option.
Allowing Wanda to support him without even realising he was doing it, he nodded at the commet regarding his windows. "Th' windows were replaced soon enough," he said, staring up at the upper floor. "But I'd appreciate if y'could sort out th' worst of these wounds. Better that than too many questions from th' others just now, y'know?"
She thought it over as they neared the door. “I may be able to mask them, or change them altogether,” she said. His power seemed to mute hers. If that were really the case, the percentage chance that she would actually make his wounds worse was significantly lessened. “I could also kill you. But I don’t believe that will happen today.”
Continued here
Remy LeBeau crashed through the treeline of the woods that backed onto the mansion, dropping to his knees and trying to catch breath that burned like fire in his lungs. He was no longer in fear of the chase: the latest Hunter had been eliminated. But it had been close. Too close this time.
He was losing the advantage now. They knew all his moves, were prepared for everything he (sometimes literally) threw at them. Slowly but surely, they were working him into a corner and the fight was leaving him. He'd got out of this encounter with his life and his integrity intact. But had it been a few minutes longer...
Remy took several more breaths and his heart rate began to slow, the pain in his chest to subside.
The Scarlet Witch sat on her knees between two bracken ferns that hadn’t been touched in the many years the woods behind the mansion had been left to grow wild. Just at their roots were sprouting several dozen tiny white mushrooms. Having spent the last few hours walking between the trees-lingering in the little alcove Remy had once taken her to- Wanda had come across the newly grown psychedelics and decided to pick a few to take to her associates in the Golden Dawn out of San Francisco. It seemed as likely a place as any to go now that she’d worn out her welcome at the mansion.
After Pietro had sped her away from Charles’ school after that disastrous meeting with Remy, she’d made her quiet, meandering way back there against her brother’s advice. It wasn’t so much that she had any intention in returning. Wanda rarely had an intention at anything; coming back to the school was as natural as a moth finding it’s home near a flame, or a pigeon returning to its master. Her master for the moment was a whim beyond her full reckoning, a feeling lingering, leaving tendrils around her thoughts, causing her to wake with a man’s name on the same place his lips had fallen just a week before.
Unbeknownst to her- as many things seemed to be- Wanda’s chaos orb had surrounded her with a faint blue halo echoing a good six feet in any direction, glittering slightly as the sun hit it, making the area around her look as if seen through and old television set. Things grew around her, extra leaves on the trees, shoots of grass peeking from the ground. Not so much that anyone would notice as they passed, but an extra look told the tale. Fortunately for Wanda, no one was about.
She heard the noise of falling, stumbling footsteps only as an afterthought. “When honey spills, and apple swells, though wind be in the West,” she recited under her breath, “I'll linger here beneath the sun, because my land is best.”
His breath was still somewhat ragged in his lungs despite the fact that the panic was subsiding. He was most definitely not unfit, yet he had been running for so long that he had all but exhausted himself. Passing a shaking hand across his eyes, he stared dully at the blood that came away with them.
It was then that Remy noticed the glow. It was then that Remy's panic began to rise again. It was then that Remy got slowly to his feet and began to inch towards the direction from which the glow emanated.
When he saw who it was, he could have collapsed with relief. Instead, he remained where he was, respectful of her apparent state of meditation. He had, after all, grown up with a voodoo woman who had never hesitated to slap him upside the head if he'd disturbed her.
He was surprised – but not displeased – to see her back. He leaned against a tree, more for support than in any effort to look remotely cool – and waited.
It took quite a few long moments before she lifted her head, looking not around at the noise he’d made or in search of something, but directly at him, as if she’d known who was there all along.
A flickering smile crossed her perfect features, like a butterfly deigning to land on a rose, but only fleetingly. Wanda’s emotions were just as fickle.
“Hunter,” she said softly in greeting. “What brings you back to the wood.” She noticed the blood on him, but assumed it was nothing- for all she knew it was an illusion. One she could smell, and wanted to touch, but knew better than the move from where she was.
After all, the man standing there could be an illusion as well.
"The Hunt," he replied, simply. "It continues, Scarlet. An' I ain't so sure I can keep it goin' for much longer."
With a shaking hand, he reached into his pocket and took out his cigarettes, discovering that virtually the entire pack had been smashed during the fight. He took one out anyway, snapping it in half and pocketing the filter end before lighting it. Taking a long, deep draw of it, he stared up at the fading half-light.
"An' I could ask…what brings th' Huntress back to th' wood?"
“The same,” she said, playing on words as easily as speaking truths. “But if you’re tired, come take a rest with me.”
She stood, the little pile of white mushrooms left behind, and brushed her hands. The thick crimson of her cloak drew on the plants around her and the blue faded. She walked towards him, feeling the chaos she lived in change somehow just for his presence. It snapped her back to the here-and-now, reminded so readily exactly who he was.
“I ran,” she said, reaching up to slowly draw her thumb through the drying blood beneath one of his eyelids. The color so closely matched her dress.
"Oui," he said, wearily. "Oui, I am tired now y'mention it." He finished the half of cigarette that he was smoking and did his usual trick of flicking it into a little smouldering heap of explosion. When she touched his face, much of the flow of panic ebbed noticeably and he closed his eyes.
"We all have t'run sometimes, cherie," he said, quietly in response to her words and reached up to catch her hand and bring it to his lips, kissing her knuckles softly. "Sometimes y'gotta run to, other times y'gotta run away. Whatever reason that both you an' I are runnin' - for now at least we get respite, non?"
His exhaustion seemed to catch up to him and his knees buckled.
As if in perfect tandem- for all their juxtaposition it should have come as more of a surprise- Wanda stepped to him like a dancer, slipping her arm around his torso and pressing herself to him, letting him lean on her. She kissed his forehead with the gentlest touch.
“It’s too dangerous for me to make us shelter here,” she said, double entendre laced so thick she might not have gotten it out of her mouth if it weren’t for the truth of her words. “But I can take you inside Charles’ house, if you wish.”
She found herself wanting to kiss him again as she had last week, only, she was too afraid to find out what would happen when she did. Instead, she let his forehead rest against hers, and looked up at him with her brilliant blue eyes.
His arms came round her and he embraced her tightly for a moment. The woman fascinated him like no other - and there had been many - that he had known. She spoke in a way that fired him up and yet there was almost an innocence about her which was at one and the same time just as attractive.
"I should prob'ly get this wound dressed an' cleaned up," he conceded. "If y'could see y'way fit t'gettin' me back inside, that would be mighty helpful indeed. An' are y'stayin' around any this time?"
He couldn't disguise the hope in his voice.
Setting a hand against his stomach, she turned and walked with him towards the mansion. Her voice when she spoke was almost a whisper, as if to communicate with just her tone that she was hiding. “I broke their windows, the windows in your room,” she said. “They are only windows, but I’m certain they won’t look kindly on it.”
Then her voice did drop to a whisper. “I will stay where you wish, if you wish me too…” she suddenly sounded more than half her age, a young girl offering herself hopefully.
As they came to the treeline, she looked up at the mansion and her expression shifted only slightly, taking on more of the Empress he met not too far in the past. “You killed him, didn’t you.” She looked aside at him, then started across the lawn with her arm still around his back. “The one who came for you.”
He physically cringed at her gentle words. "Oui," he said, bitterly. "I killed him. It came down to that. Him. Or me. An' I've got sort of attached t'livin', y'know what I mean?" It hadn't been a quick death, either. It had been slow strangulation, something that Remy despised doing, but which had been his only option.
Allowing Wanda to support him without even realising he was doing it, he nodded at the commet regarding his windows. "Th' windows were replaced soon enough," he said, staring up at the upper floor. "But I'd appreciate if y'could sort out th' worst of these wounds. Better that than too many questions from th' others just now, y'know?"
She thought it over as they neared the door. “I may be able to mask them, or change them altogether,” she said. His power seemed to mute hers. If that were really the case, the percentage chance that she would actually make his wounds worse was significantly lessened. “I could also kill you. But I don’t believe that will happen today.”
Continued here
