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It may be summertime, but Logan knows that winter comes fast in New York. Not to mention that he likes to feel productive and, well, he doesn't have much interest in playing nursemaid to a bunch of teenage mutants. Plus, he's come to the conclusion that he needs to have his own place. So he's going to build a shack on the property and, along the way, build up some firewood supplies for the winter.
So, he's chopping wood, near the old stables, in a wifebeater and blue jeans. He could use his claws, but the axe reminds him of good times and home. The smell of cedar is rich around him, mingled with the smoke from his cigarette as he chops away, humming something old and half-forgotten under his breath.
*
A cursory inspection of the grounds show that.. its inhabited. Duh. Children move in and out of the house at breakneck speeds until a teacher ushers them inside for dinner time. All the while Raven, she remains at the cusp of the edge of the forest, watching an all too familiar figure chopping down a tree.
If anyone could pull off lumberjack, it would be him.
With a slight slide from her own little branch from afar, she allows the gravity to take hold, one hand snaping out to catch the branch that cracks beneath her weight to stop her fall, her legs kicking up in a flip that has the other snapping out to plant nails into the tree bark with a wrap and a wind down the trunk. With a heavy thud, she lands upon the ground at a crouch, blonde hair smacking against her cheeks which brings about a blush that completely irritates.
The row of red upon her cheek was replaced with blue, then peach again as she begins to walk. Both hands in her pockets. Faint hints of blood upon her boots and coat. The smell of gunpowder and intent..
*
Logan catches her scent first. He knows it immediately, although he doesn't entirely know where, at first. Can't really match it to a face. At least, not one face.
The last time was in France, 1943. A little cafe on the coast, where the revolutionaries would meet. Logan crashed there, sleeping underneath the bar on his way towards Versailles after a drop off from the Canadian Air Force.
And she'd been there. Different that time. Hair black as night, beauty mark on her lip, all soulful and seductive. She'd had the Nazis there in the palm of her hand - all the easier for her to crush them in her due time.
"Hey there, songbird," he says in his rough voice, driving the axe in the stump and drawing out his handkerchief to wipe his brow. "Thought I smelled hints o' you 'round this place. Guess I shouldn't be surprised."
*
A booted heel lifts to plant down hard upon the stump of where the axe now remains, one elbow slung over the top of her thigh as she takes a slight little lean. She remembers that day.. or perhaps his last. One where she met him atop of a bridge and pushed him clean over, hoping to never see that mangy face again. There was history there, naturally. One that even Raven herself couldn't ignore.
"Oh? And why not?"
Her blue eyed gaze casts along the mansion proper, her hand lifting to gesture towards the doors. "Is he in." Beat. "Are -they- in?" Then she realizes, "Just what in the hell are you doing here?"
*
Logan takes a drag on his smoke and looks levelly at the blonde, "You mean Chuck and Magnet Boy? Nah, they're out. Just the kids and probably a few minders," he says. "And I'm not surprised cause Chuck's the kind that draws people in - inspirational figure and whatnot. He'd have been a sight in La Resistance, back in the day," he chuckles.
"You like your cause. You're a believer. Doing justice, even when it hurts. I remember that much," he says. "I'm here cause I need to be here. 'cause all that dreamin' an' hopin' ain't gonna be enough to keep 'em alive if the folks in the jackboots come callin'. That's when it'll be up to people like you and me to settle up for 'em."
*
"Blessed that he wasn't there.." Raven confesses, looking longingly towards the house as a soft little grunt is heard. Her foot dropping down, hands remaining within her pockets as she takes a slight step away from the stump, preparing to head inside. Granted, there was no invitation, but her ilk didn't really need any.
"What else do you remember, Logan?" She asks quietly, turning her head so that her blue eye could be seen, the quick ripple of flesh allowing that one yellow eye to remain upon him, nearly haunted. "Perhaps not everything. Not the monster that possibly cost you what you treasured." One eye winks as she grins. "Besides. Everyone knows that you're possibly here for a girl." Tch! That sound was loud from her lips as she begins to walk towards the manse.
"Typical."
*
Logan snorts, "An' you're here for a boy. Him," he says. "Maybe not the same way - although prob'ly a little bit. Even you can't hide the way you feel about him, not to me. I can taste the way he makes you sweat. Not in the carnal way, although prob'ly a bit o' that, too. Nah, he's got his hooks deeper'n that. That's the smell o' love sweat," he says.
"An' no, I don't remember everything. I remember enough. Enough to know yer a dangerous beastie, girlie, just like me."
*
"Zur Hlle mit dir und wo Sie stehen!" Raven snaps, turning upon her heels to stalk closer to the canuck. Both hands curling into fists as she fights the need to clean his clock right then and there. But she doesn't. "Get your fucking nose checked." Her hand snaps up, nearly drawing her fingers to flick at her nose but once again, restraint on the ground of the school. For now.
"Whatever love 'sweat' your hinting at has -nothing- do to with Him." She takes a step back, keeping him in her sights, her now yellow eyes impacting the sneer upon her face. "You do well to remember that too. Especially while she's wrapped in your arms after you put claws to her from belly to back."
*
Logan narrows his own eyes, "In case you ain't heard, birdy, I got a little extra hardware these days," he says and there's a SNIKT as his right hand pops claws, gleaming metal shining in the twilight. "Enough that even you shiftin' yer guts around ain't gonna do much to keep you alive you cross me," he says, then closes his eyes and breathes before he withdraws them with another metallic sound.
"But," he says. "Yer right. Maybe we oughtta stay outta one another's…personal business," he says. "But I ain't gonna let you drag a bunch o' innocent kids into no bloody mess either. I dunno what yer plannin', but I know yer mind is always workin'. YOu need somebody t'do yer wetwork, you come to me, not them."
*
"Oh. I've heard." Raven grins. But she leaves that little tidbit where it is. "Perhaps we should put that to the test one day, mmh? Now that you got a bit of steel inside you, you think you're invincible. Aber ich habe Mglichkeiten, wie Sie zu machen Kotau, Logan."
She laughs a little, then gives a shake of her head, her eyes blinking black to blue as she calms herself in his sights. "Oh look. I've hit a personal tone." She murmurs, taking those few steps closer, her nose wrinkling as she reaches out to lightly pluck and pull at his beater. "My main goal is to protect these kids, yes. However, they are going to be dragged into the fight. There is no sense in putting up resistance against the inevitable, Logan. We're mutants. We're proud. And we must fight." She lets out a sigh. "But for now, the brand of wetwork that's required needs a delicate hand. I have no use for you. Yet."
*
Logan shakes his head, "Ruthless," he says. "Difference between you and me, darlin'. I was a soldier first. Soldier's job is to keep folks safe. Don't get me wrong, kids should know how to defend themselves. But I ain't got much trust in how eager some folks seem t'be to get t'the bloodshed," he says.
"An' bein' a mutant ain't got nothin' to do with my pride. Ain't nothin' I earned, just how I was born," he says. "So don't go flutterin' yer eyelashes at me an' think it's gonna get me on yer side. Don't get me wrong, we had some fun in our day an' left our marks. But some o' those kids in there ain't never gonna be soldiers an' don't want no war."
*
"So I am not the only one then? The only one who knows that eventually, these children will be on the front lines and eventually die just for their right to be free." Her brow raises faintly, lips forming into a thin line. "You know and I know that they need to be prepared -now-."
"They may not want a war, Logan. But it's here. And it's now. And you cannot stop the flow of the blood that's going to land on this doorstep. Not with all of your precious metals." She pinches his chest, then drops her hand, her head shaking. "We can go round about this all day. But you know that I'm right."
*
Logan shakes his head, "I know you think you're right. It ain't the same thing," he says. "Maybe you are. But don't mean I gotta go along or be happy about it. Don't mean I don't fight tooth and nail to keep it from their door long as I can," he says.
"Savin' those kids is more'n just keepin' 'em breathin'. It's lettin' 'em be what they wanna be, have real lives, not just…death and pain and fightin'. That ain't no life, you know that as well as me. I want better for them. A chance to breathe. That's what Chuck wants, too. I may think he's a soft knucklehead sometimes, but he's a better man than me."
*
"Never said you shouldn't." Raven murmurs faintly.
"But you know, the ones that are like me? The ones that inevitably cannot hide who and what they truly are? They'll never be free."
She doesn't comment more, only turning away from him as the visage of what she appears when she is human fades. The blue skin something a little more prominent than pale, the thick of her red hair a gust in the wind as it falls along her shoulders. She was quiet, a reflection in the moment as she looks up towards the mansion.
"He's better than us all." But even she knew that her beloved brother was not without his faults. "And he's a goddamned fool."
*
Logan would point out that she could hide what she was perfectly well, given that her power was what it was. But he knew there were others, like that Armando dude who looked like melted candle wax. Or Angel and his big bushy ass wings.
"You can't force folks not to be scared," he says. "You gotta convince 'em. Chuck's thinkin' about the long game - wars gotta have ends." He lights another smoke, sidling up next to her to look at the house, "I'm just sayin' - there's some who got scores to settle, on our side, too. Folks just lookin' fer any excuse to rip into somebody for what they been through. I get it. But that don't mean it's gonna get us what we need."
Logan says, "Maybe, just maybe, it's time for a little foolishness."
*
"Charles isn't thinking about the long game. He isn't doing what needs to be done to achieve the peace that he's claim to fight for. He's the man in his castle looking down on the others while he plays God." She shakes her head, her gaze canting towards Logan as he takes a step forward, her movements quick as she snatches the cigarette from between his fingers to take a pull of her own, shifting her weight with a hip cock as one arm crosses over her chest.
It was time for some foolishness? This gets a raise of a red brow as her yellow eyed gaze lingers upon him for a long while.
"Prague. 1942." Was it that sort of foolishness?
*
Logan shakes his head, "Darlin', I can list to you a hundred atrocities I seen with my own naked eyes. Man against man, choppin' each other to bloody bits over nothin' but the color o' skin or the way they dropped knees to their God or just cause they wanted to fight over a little bit o' God's earth," he says. "Course shit can go bad. An' it prob'ly will. But it don't mean ya don't try. If we just shrug our shoulders and bear down for a fight, you're goddamn right we're gonna get one," he sighs.
"Truth be told, I ain't much for philosophizin' and god damn I know I"m tired o' tryin' t'be the cooler head. It ain't in my nature. I'm tryin' t'be better an' so's he and so's most o' the others followin' his lead."
*
"You ain't much for it, but you're doing it." Raven happens to let out a chuff of a laugh, her hands soon stuck within her pockets as the cigarette remains in between the thick of her lips.
"I'm going inside." She announces, taking those few steps with a look back, her skin rippling and peeling into something a little bit more familiar to them all. "Continue with your chopping and philosphizin', as you put it. It's for the birds."