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The rain is falling on New York, finally, banishing some of the stifling heat of a hateful month that has seen murder, race riots, and Martin Luther King go by pretty much unnoticed by many of the fanciful population. They are turned to their own cares, like the monster apparently hacking up mutants. The Institute barely knows the presence of a redhead; she makes her home elsewhere, and with Columbia calling her name, the bohemian looks likely to spend even fewer hours in residence. Probably something of a relief to walk through in the late afternoon, covered against the shower, though her transparent vinyl raincoat reveals that lovely jade miniskirt and swirling, psychedelic dream of her blouse in all its finery. How daring, she's actually wearing a laced up suede bustier corset type thing, giving her the look of a neo-modern woodland elf.
One who looks slightly less than happy, prowling through the dorms and considering the rooms as she closes in on Limbo's queen. Here, just another student. A delicate knock at the door for her is a whisper of her knuckles, and she considers the darkness dwelling in the hall with veiled eyes. The carefree air of someone effortlessly cool might charm the students, but if they know how to look deeper, the students might clue in she's not here strictly for pleasure.
*
Illyana's sitting in the girl's dorm room, surrounded by a growing stack of books and reference material. Eldritch light surrounds her, and she floats six inches off the ground, books suspended around her on glowing wisps of amethyst energy. Every one of them is open, pages turning in raspy arrhythmia, and— weirdly— her eyes are closed, hands held in a pattern that looks as if it belongs on a statute of Krishna, head bowed slightly. Ankles folded under her knees, her peach-colored skirt brushes the ground behind her, revealing knobby knees and wiry thighs. She's chanting in some quiet fell tongue under her breath, which only adds to the oppressive occult air around her.
*
A usual sight: books everywhere. Private things strewn about, a mess of teenagers who aren't always the nicest and finest of souls. Girls at this age are, to be sure, fairly sloppy with the few exceptions being yon redhead, though she has a few years yet on the others. Peeking inside, Scarlett walks quietly towards the meditating blonde. "Absorbing all the information at once? That's a trick I should like to learn, I think. All my education at this rate has been in the wrong direction. Ah well, better to learn the life lesson now than ten years from now and have lost time to make up for."
*
Illyana squawks, the lights flicker, and she lands heavily on her rear. "Ow!" she squeaks, rubbing a bruised hipbone. She's not big on padding, the skinny thing. "Hullo Scarlett," she says ruefully, looking up at the other mutant girl. "Yes. Belasco taught me the way of it when I was a child. It's an advanced technique but once mastered, you can learn at a staggering rate. Was the only way I could get some peace from Belasco, was studying. So, study much, master many skills. Learn all I can."
She leaves her skirts in disarray, peering up at the redhead bohemian. "What are you doing here?" she inquires pleasantly, hugging her bare knees in loosely circled forearms. "Are you back for a while, or just stopping in?"
*
Is the cause of the pain her fault? A perplexed look descends over Scarlett, and she presses her lips together, concern evident in her expression. All the same, she hangs back until the blonde Russian invites her nearer, by unspoken gesture and word aloud. "I would honestly find such a skill to be mesmerizing to have. How do you manage?" Curiosity, hello, there's the cat. A ginger cat, but very much in keeping with attention. "Hello to you too. Am I interrupting you? I hoped I might find you about, for company and assuring you are still here." As opposed to spontaneously vanishing, as if anyone would be stupid enough to threaten a demonically infused teenager. Fool be them, if not dead.
"No," she replies quietly, "I do not think it wise to take up residence here." She still has a room, if an empty one, home only to a few changes of clothes and essentials as one would keep for the rare visit. Why she doesn't stay in residence, the redhead doesn't say. "Company seems a good reason to search out a friend. I worry still about Jean and… ah, the discoveries are so hard to assess."
*
"Yes," Illyana confirms for Rogue. There's a beat. "Er, but— would have stopped anyway if I heard you were back," she says, shrugging one bare, narrow shoulder negligently at the taller woman. "I am not going anywhere. If not here, probably training with Strange, or at Limbo. Though not… at Limbo lately," she says, a bit guarded for a moment.
"Yes, Jean. I hope soon, someone finds her. Piotr seems most concerned and Logan has been gone for days, searching, sniffing— like badger looking for insects." She shrugs a bit apathetically— these things happen, after all.
"Company is welcome, though. Tell of your travels, what have you been doing with your time?" Illyana says. She reaches over for two pillows off her narrow cot and offers one to Scarlett, and wiggles her hips around to slide the other under them.
*
The tip of her head following, the redhead does not press on the matter of Limbo. Rudeness is unacceptable in Scarlett's world, and she represents a higher standard of privacy and politeness, all things said and done. It would hardly do to upset Illyana, besides. "The lack of Jean concerns me deeply. She would have no reason to depart. I told Crystal what I could, and hoped that Logan might provide better information regarding what happened. He guards her so closely, he surely might have an idea or two regarding her whereabouts. She's a dear friend. This absence is uncharacteristic to high degrees, and I suspect the worst."
See, power of positive thinking holds at least Jean isn't dead. Always look on the bright side of…
She chooses to sit, though, her weight barely adding to the cot. She folds her legs neatly over one another, adopting a modified lotus position effortlessly. "Practicing, by and large. There is so much I have to understand before I can master anything, though I conjured what I think was a lightning spark. Not a bolt, but it tried to become fire at the same time. Does that constitute a worthy cause? For now I've been focused upon detection of magic and concentrating on it. I don't quite know how to begin with regards to a few protective spells, though they will eventually come. It's like learning a language, but no one has given me an alphabet."
*
"Mastery takes time," Illyana says, reassuringly. "The energy comes from without, but your soul controls it. Gives it focus and direction, and substance. Anyone with the proper affinity and knowledge can summon fire or flame or unleash the dead to walk the Earth, but it takes spirit to make it into something strong— something /real/," she explains. She holds a hand aloft, face focused in concentration, and summons an eldritch flame that skips and flickers but looses no heat, cupped in her palm and glowing purple.
"This is not real. It only /looks/ real. To give it life, to make it more than illusion…" Something sparkles in her eyes and she blows on the flame, and heat starts to caress Scarlett's fine features. "Focus," she says, looking satisfied.
*
The young woman extends her palm, and the burst of energy forming there in a rapid rotation is every bit as brilliant as the lights in the Arctic sky. It burns with its own mesmerizing force, and unlike the witchlight, the substance is very much real rather than any illusion. Scarlett's brows draw together as she concentrates, limiting the shape and size of the round ball surrounded by dancing ripples and oscillating flares. "This much I can do," she observes. The heat radiating off the ball is very much present, redoubling the other force almost greedily. Her gaze is that same eldritch green, tinted by cyan from the spheroid. "The issue is that I simply cannot /will/ myself to protect against certain things. Nor can I bless or augment others simply by imagining them moving quicker or becoming more graceful, more nimble. I'm unaware of the way to do it, much less who is willing to let me change them that way. As I'm apparently a touch too affiliated with the light in its truest form. Imagine, they might be turned to stardust and a glow or a pillar of ice. I prefer to think not. "
*
"I… am not the best person to ask," Illyana admits after heavy hesitation. "I do not fully comprehend how each individual visualizes the creation of magical forces. Belasco's methods were brutal and not geared towards my particular competences, I am discovering— Strange has taught me a great deal in a short amount of time, and I'm forced to realize I likely learned a very difficult way of conceptualizing magic. It's left me… doubting much of what I know, beyond theory and history."
"On Limbo, I can simply… will things to be. I did not have to manipulate many energies or adjust the warp and weft of the world to accommodate it— I simply visualized what I wanted and impressed my will on the universe, and it response to me. Here, I must hold an image in my mind while gathering the appropriate energies, I must hold them and focus them, keep them attuned, prevent overreach and stop and leaks from happening—" the glimmer of witchfire in her hands abruptly pulses and then *blrts* from existence, and she sags a little. "And it's too much, and I lose focus."
*
"On the contrary, you might be one of the best. I know what I would perceive, how to alter it. But simply practicing it. How do I imbue a person with a blessing without running a risk? You clearly must possess different talents, and different aptitudes besides. It may be a question for the good doctor, if he were to permit me the freedom for such," murmurs the redhead. She apparently has a strategy in motion there. "Unless there is some way to target people without truly harming them. You hold an image in your mind, though, and that is no different at all from what I do. Just the outcome, perhaps."
On that note, she merely shrugs and Scarlett shakes her head. "Do or do not, but cast one must. How are you then, adjusting here and settling? Piotr is gravely worried about Jean, but beyond that, I wonder whether you take satisfaction from the lessons and the city. It is so very different from Limbo, isn't it? But freer, in some ways."
