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Billy has an allowance, but its not like, huge. He doesn't often wander to Greenwich, but every once in awhile, he can't help himself and he splurges. Why? Because the theatre! Coming out of a show, Billy has a certain upbeat energy to him. He's in a pair of jeans and a red and yellow hoodie, which is good, because it's *cold*. Plus, he's been thinking of going and visiting those magic-types again, and just teleporting over would probably be rude. So he makes his way down the street towards the Sanctum.
*
Wanda might call Greenwich Village home, if she were to call anywhere home nowadays. The very notion tickles the funny bone in a disturbing kind of way. All the same, she brushes her fingers over her pristine white coat with a bright mandarin orange belt, the cut identical to her claret one. What are the chances something like that comes in a ridiculous snowy colour? Hint, it's close to zero. The young woman is escorted by the smell of ramen noodles coming from a plastic bag she carries, which implies a visit to Chinatown more than any eatery in this eclectic corner of the world. For whatever reasons, a cat walks alongside her, meowing incessantly. It doesn't seem like the cat wants to eat her noodles or be fed, and given the plump state, it's likely not starving either. Every so often, Wanda makes an affirmative sound. "I will look for it," she murmurs in Transian. How does a cat understand Transian? "Stay away from any more you see. They will hurt you. Bad spirits are on the rise." Her path leads her right back to the sanctum, such that Billy will fall within her sights soon.
*
Seeing wanda up ahead, Billy picks up the pace, jogging the last little bit to fall in beside her. He promptly blinks at the cat, "Are you talking… whatever that language is, to a cat?" He has a bit of a goofy grin on his lips at that. Apparently he doesn't think he can speak any of the language, even if he's shown he knows some words. "Is that like, a power you have?" Such a curious guy. "Talking to cats? That would be a very awesome power."
Billy eyes the cat for a long, thoughtful moment. All he has to do is say Ispeakcat a few times… and want it, and everything might change. He still doesn't *know* he can twist reality like that, though. Still, there's a faint quiver of power around him for a brief moment. "Is that ramen?" as thoughts of magicking the world's cats is forgotten.
*
The cat flicks pointed ears forwards. Whiskers twitch, and it promptly sits down to clean a white paw. Wanda stands adjacent to her fuzzy companion, leaning down to scritch its black ruff, revealing a slim collar in black, almost invisible. When she stands to the crinkling of the plastic bag, a brush of her coat leaves no fur clinging in unwanted places. "I do," she answers, making no real bones about it. The Sight leaves a trace of strawberry wine staining her pupils, hard to catch without the light striking. "She tells me bad spirits go in Stuyvesant Town." That name is probably said wrong. It matters less; he'll know Stuvy-Town or not. "They make people sad. Some have hurt themselves. I am going to hunt them."
In a go-go dancer's dress? Probably not. Her gaze flicks to the grey building, and she nods. "It is. Are you hungry? You can come in and have some. I will ready my knives."
*
"That's cool." But then there's another blink from Billy, "I… didn't even know spirits *existed*. Want help?" There's a pause there, even if he's so gosh darn earnest at first, "Assuming spirits can be electrocuted. I might not have any of the sort of useful anti-spirit abilities, come to think of it. Well, I suppose I can thought grab a silver knife. Silver is totally what you use against spirits, right?"
The young man hesitates a moment longer, then flashes a dimpled grin and nods, "Sure. Noodles sound good, if you have enough, I don't want to be a burden or … Wait, ready your knives?"
*
The bag is handed over; like any noodle bowl full of broth fit for a family of five, it's heavy. She is happy to pass that to him as the cost of admission, and it further frees up her hands in case the Sanctum is having a bad day. You never know. "You have no teacher?" This much is probably self-evident, but Wanda asks it anyways. When she walks up to the doors of the sanctum, the wards are worse than puppies. They know her, and while they love the master most of all, they riffle playfully along her coat and tease her scarf. She sighs and snaps her fingers, uttering a sharp syllable: "Kah." Then her bleached coat turns brilliant burgundy, its normal shade, and the hue of her belt darkens to black, except the seal of the Vishanti stitched in dark chrome. The spells move on to dance over Billy.
She pushes over the door. "Silver against shape-shifters. Every spirit type has a different weakness. Bane we call it. Salt is always good, and silver often. But to be useful it must be powder to hold them." Her footsteps click through the foyer, and it's into the Sanctum they ought to go. "Knives to stab a spirit that takes on a body. Or I can cut them through dimensions. But the blade needs a spell for that. Best I prepare, and not be caught by surprise."
*
Billy accepts the burden without complaint, without even blinking over it, and he walks along. There's a bit of a shrug, "Yeah, no teacher. I just… started doing things one day. I was on the roof cleaning out the gutter, fell, and missed the ground." He grins. One of his favorite books. That doesn't even exist yet. "Spent the next couple of days flying around all the time. Flying is *AWESOME*. The lightning…" Billy frowns.
"Some kid was beating me up. I put him in the hospital. But he lived." He seems relieved about that.
As for the wards… Billy is all stiff and not a little bit weirded out about them, but endures as he follows Wanda into the Sanctum. He does listen to — "Wait, shape-shifters *exist*? Like, werewolves?" The rest of it he files away with an eager nod of his head, "A bane, huh. Do you have to experiment, or can you research their… banes? I'm real good at research."
*
"Yes, flying is good." One day she'll master English, much faster than her current rate would ever suggest. Mind, this is a girl who was in East Berlin barely months ago. She holds up her hands over her head, stretching out enough for her back to pop rather loudly. A look shot over her shoulder towards one of the chairs affirms no one in residence, and then she nods to Billy. "Almost all things in legend and myths do. Maybe not the way you know them. Wolves, cats, birds, snakes. I have seen many. Bane research is hard. A name of a spirit must be known. People do not write these down much. They do not share the knowledge. It is a kind of money for mystics." Whether she has an opinion on it, her cloistered expression doesn't much show. Though she does brighten about ten shades getting inside the sanctum, so apparently like a cat, petting her in a friendly way makes her lighten up.
"Sometimes libraries have them. But mostly I learn by practice to build an… not a library. A store of strange information. Sometimes objects. What I would call this in English, I don't know." Girl's looking for the word armory, but it's neither here nor there. She gestures towards a side corridor and walks that way, evidently prepared to have dinner where all sane people do: the kitchen. And it is a weird kitchen, make no mistake. Mages have strange diets, one and all.
*
Strange diets indeed: Billy could live on McNuggets! Also he could end up super fat if he did that. He listens avidly, and when they're in the kitchen, he goes to set the noodles down on the counter and look around without trying to seem to be looking around too closely. "Huh, the world is weird."
An understatement, but with that one word Billy expresses his thoughts on all the stuff he's just learned. "Well, I suppose the flying kid can't exactly judge." He grins suddenly, dimples showing again. For all Wanda is a closed book, Billy is wide open and expressive. "But I keep wondering when it is that I'll stop being amazed. Then I remember: holy heck it's 1963 and I need a nap."
*
His companion, by default, cannot tolerate meat any more, and seafood is a question mark. They live on powerful teas around here, the master and the maiden, among others. Though noodles are apparently a-okay by her, and they are chock to the rim full of vegetables and a rich broth that practically announces itself with a megaphone shouting, "Eat me, you're hungry, right?!"
The march of mealtime calls her to check drawers for spoons and forks to supplement the cheap chopsticks inside the bag. Just one pair, unfortunately. She also draws out a ladle, and then goes to pillage a cabinet for a pair of smaller bowls. "The world is how you make it." Philosophical Wanda, it would seem, reigns today. "When awe dies, there is no point to much living. Be open and amazed, it is good for you. Light on the spirit. Have you gone to school now, or is your family doing things to work?" Her gaze flickers up to regard him, almost looking through the flesh to something deeper. It's probably hard to say what, but the mistress of probabilities is herself attuned to weird wavelengths, and the Sight opened a wider crack than usual seeks anything weird or changed about him.
*
Frankly, Billy looks a bit relieved when there's only one set of chopsticks, announcing, "I absolutely suck at chopsticks." in case the expression wasn't crystal clear. "That's what the Doctor said, I don't do magic, I manipulate reality. Isn't that another way of saying 'the world is how you make it'?" He grins at that. But more seriously, he leans towards the food and gets a good smell, "Ooh, it smells delicious. And I'm a freshman in college. I got good grades, but don't need a scholarship. Dad's a doctor, mom's a nurse." Pause, "Though she's supposed to be a psychiatrist, which is weird. But still, the family is well off so they can afford tuition and a living allowance."
He hesitates, "Though I have *absolutely no idea* what I want to… be." 'when I grow up'? He has to stop thinking that way, he's grown up now.
Sorta.
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 98
*
The pair of reality warpers dine on noodles from a Chinese restaurant, undoubtedly, that Wanda doles out into a pair of matched bowls in the kitchen. The wards have already said hello, the scent is mouth-watering, as though one of those restaurant owners has a thing for making Wanda rounded and happy rather than always starving looking. Maybe said woman has an issue with a girl who lives on tea products alone. So it is Billy can sit wherever he likes, his face half in the bowl to sniff at the steaming broth and its vegetables — no meat here, not ever! — simmered in fragrant Shanghai blended spices and herbs. Theirs is a conversation on relatively good terms; no one is breaking anything except chopsticks, which are apparently hers to use. He's talking about his university courses and parents' occupations, looking a bit hesitant on the last statements on what to do with his life.
*
Said silvery puppy-spells cavort around their master ever-so-briefly, causing him to look up from reading a recently-acquired tome. He sets it aside on a nearby surface within the Loft, likely the top of a display cabinet, and walks briskly downstairs to hunt down the newly-arrived Witch and…her guest.
The kitchen is where Strange finds them both and he pauses in the doorway with a half-smile. Knock-knock, his knuckles on the doorframe, and then a greeting:
"Smells wonderful. What did you bring home then? Noodles?" His steel-grey eyes shift to the familiar young man. "And Billy, nice to see you again." Truly, no slight or joke implied. He doesn't mind the young man - much.
*
The stakes remain too high for her to keep her mouth shut. Billy all but seals his doom by the second sentence, a frisson of energy rolling down her spine and leaving the fine hair on the nape of her neck standing on end. Bubbles form and roll quicksilver through her bloodstream, stardust filaments raging at light speed towards a certain, defined conclusion. The sensation of disquiet is not precisely rare. Yet its very presence leaves the lithe young woman on edge, every nerve ending vibrating as adrenaline speeds faster than Pietro himself and her hand grips the edge of the countertop for support.
Having that distinctive golden pallor to her skin is just plain unfair, for all the blood could rush away from her face and no one in New York is likely to be the wiser. It makes catching her blushing that much harder.
Looking down into the bowl of ramen broth, floating shallots and green onions skimming the rim, means she misses Strange at first. Water serves as an ideal medium for scrying or a vain person to lose themselves to admiring their own reflection — the ancient Greek Narcissus was a master, hence 'narcissist.' But she's not staring at the noodles curling like celestial dragons in late autumn skies, the splendid coils of their long bodies promising immense wealth and benevolent joy upon any who witness them dancing in the storm.
"Listen when he says what is magic, what is not." Her voice travels a long way, even as she stares into the depths of another dimension: herself. "He is master over the mystic, his teacher knew even more secrets. What you do is not magic. You change the world another way. I know because I am master over making reality do what I want by making it be. Not with magic, but will. I can do both, in fact. So you may see I speak with some knowledge and not a guess."
Let that sit a second before she goes on. "In twenty years I have met no one human who can do this. They tried to make more. Many tried. Every last test died. Every experiment failed. Except me, but you are here. You have my power, this thing so rare. You are here and say you remember a new time, not 1963. You have my hair colour, as I had as a child. But…" She looks up, and she isn't seeing either of them, so drowned in the Sight they're next to invisible. "You have my cerhan's smile. So you cannot be another of us made by the cult unless he is lying to me. And you are not, Stephen, are you? So… child, who are you?"
*
"Hi, Doc.." Billy waves a spoon, even as he spends some time enjoying the aroma of the ramen. But then Wanda is being very serious, so Billy puts away his dimples and listens. He still doesn't quite get this 'magic' vs 'not-magic' distinction, but he listens, and he tries to understand.
Then she continues, and the young man frowns a little bit. All her questions sink into him and come up with…. nothing. "I'm Billy— William, really— Kaplan." is all he has to answer, shaking his head slowly, "I don't know anything about any cult, I'm Jewish. I don't know anything about any … what's a cerhan? I don't know what answer you're looking for."
"I'm Billy Kaplan."
*
Listening is what the good Doctor does these days, a bit of a diversion from his past habits, assuredly. His posture shows incredibly nonchalance, the true relaxation of the well-dressed man about his manor; he folds his arms lightly, shoulder bearing his weight against the door frame, and one indoor-booted foot kicked back to rest toes to wooden flooring. Billy's wave with a spoon is returned with a two-fingered wave from the resting point of his elbow. And so - he listens…and slowly narrows his eyes towards Wanda as she waxes suddenly quite talkative.
Shared auras means he catches the uncertain roiling in invisible shades of scarlet even as he slowly straightens in response. No longer leaning, but waiting, on tinter-hooks, for this revelation that she seems to be heading towards.
WHAT. Denial skitters for purchase within the confines of cool logic, even as his jaw slowly drops open. His smile?! Strange blinks the Sight into play as an automatic response to stress and shifts metallic-amaranthine irises to Billy specifically.
He's as confused as the young man, but bites back immediate speech while Billy tries to make sense of things. The silvery wards swish up around his shoulder and, without ever breaking the intensely-studious stare towards Billy, he turns his head to shush them with a whisper. Once he has the sense of an opportunity to speak, he does.
"A «cerhan» is myself," the Sorcerer says quietly, his voice low and calm and imparting the sense of intense emotions held in tight check by long-practiced patience, "and I am not lying. May Agamotto judge me truly." No click or flicker of citrine from the diadem around his neck. "I am, however, looking forwards to hearing more about you, Billy Kaplan, especially considering that you are apparently out of your time."
*
Wouldn't it be nice if there were straightforward scientific tests to affirm obvious things? Or if they would apply in the situation?
Wanda at least holds her head high, meeting their eyes though hers are completely blotted out in a maelstrom of heliotrope light spiraling through immense, elaborate displays that, if sped up from their timeless rotation, would resemble nothing so much as the rotation of a stellar nebula or the galaxy in its dust halo. The shimmer in an almost liquid slurry is probably uncanny enough to put most people off.
"Smile," she asks Billy, flat out. A hard thing to ask, her request comes without the stricture of command. "I will show it. With your leave, Doctor?"
Upon receiving Strange's consent, she spins her fingers through an elaborate spiral, flipping her palm over while her index finger points and her ring and thumb meet to control the frame. Reality wavers in a sheen of reflect, Strange's face painted from sight and memory with a slightly lopsided grin, all the fierce pride of a man certain of himself. At that age, it's called confidence; in Billy? Cheeky. Grin from the Kaplan or not, she forges a second illusion hanging suspended in the same scale. Her breath pours out through rounded lips to literally give the life of spirit into both images put side by side. These aren't static illusions, but animated down to as much lifelike detail as an observant young woman in proximity to two people for a bit can possibly muster.
And then she overlaps them with a blink. Her palm rests extended with the spell tethered to her in fine gossamer filaments forging a ring of amaranth light about her wrists, the distinct visible spell signatures blending two very different magic traditions. The whirling knotwork of Celtic tradition, maybe, or something close enough to count; the very elaborate yantra design of Indian and Tibetan practice.
"For all my father told me, my mother could be Jewish. One does not come to a cult at birth always. My brother does not have the gift. Maybe he carries it. You cannot be from my mother who is dead." Facts are played in sound even as the image holds itself. "The chances are so slim. You came after us. The ritual that made us was known to so few now dead." Mostly violently murdered, but who needs to know that?
*
"I… don't know what else to tell you, Doctor. I don't remember enough for the memories to be useful. I know facts, I remember facts and things, but all the context is missing." Billy hesitates a moment, "Like, I know certain events are going to happen. I know we're going to successfully put some men on the moon, and the first man will say as he takes his first step, 'one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind'. I don't know who that will be, though, or *when*. I also know one of the attempts will fail horribly and everyone will die. But I don't know *which one* or why it fails or or when that happens, so I couldn't point out that bit of intel and get someone to fix it and change it." He seems… frustrated.
"All the *context* that would make this useful is… just gone. Instead, I remember my life up until now *too*, but that like.. overwrote most of the *specifics*. I know the Soviet Union is going to fall and be replaced by the Russian Federation, but I don't know when or why or how. It's useless."
Wanda tells him to smile? Well, he's a bit stressed out right now, but Billy can usually smile. So there: see? Her illusion work leaves the poor kid's brain spinning. He has no idea what to make of that, but he gives Strange an odd look. He does blink at Wanda, "From your mother? Well no, I have — I mean." Now he's confused.
*
The illusion spell tickles even as it draws a bit of his aura into it. Strange watches from beneath half-lidded eyes, as still and attentive as a panther, as the Witch uses the spell in order to demonstrate just how alike the two men look.
It's not a perfect match, of course, considering each human being is an amalgamation of physical traits from parents, but he won't deny it, even if it rankles him slightly with the abruptness of truth - those damned dimples are nearly identical.
Gods-damned dimples. There's nothing close to a confident smirk about his face right now. It is reserved, an attempt to withhold all judgment until all facts are presented.
Billy's odd look is returned with all the emotion of a shark.
"It's simple then. You exist in the now, with us. Clearly, you came after us. There's some…kink in the time stream," and he waves a hand in frustrated acknowledgment of said current time stream, "that caused you to show up. However…with how time-space paradox was explained to me by an old associate from Columbia, you were fated to end up here. With us. Whether you exist in the future, I can't tell. The meditation has been decidedly useless lately in regards to this." Here, he rubs at his temples with thumb and fingers before growling out a sigh. "This is…acceptable. Fated to show up and now, here you are, and insofar as I can tell, no branching realities have occurred. Now, what I want to know is how he shares my dimples and your hair color, Wanda."
Cue the head tilt to one side and keen look towards her.
*
Fine-tuning the illusion largely drops Wanda from conversation, for photorealistic manipulations require a careful eye for details and a sequence of small changes rather than major ones. A duplicate appears, projected from the superimposed likenesses of Sorcerer Supreme and Billy Kaplan. Her gaze considers them for a moment, and then that mind so honed to split second calculations and measurements really sets to work. It might be hard to see the adjustments she makes, performed on such a minor scale, but the first of them could be the most distinctive: the cheekbones, too sharp in one, higher and less pronounced a bit in the other. Her thumb trails down the vaulted arch of her own, an inheritance from both the maternal and paternal lines, and as she sculpts that curve of bone and flesh, the image itself is shaped and refined. It's a face within a face, and something that suggests practice.
Like this isn't the first or second time this particular visual has been performed.
Darken the eyes, arch the brows slightly higher to the middle and smooth out the feminine influence entirely. She critically adjusts the shape of the eyes, too, tilting Strange's about four degrees, give or take, and toying with the palpebral fold until it just about matches up what she's looking for. No especial flourishes are made to draw attention, except the luminous vibrancy of the image grows the brighter, especially when she critically regards the nose, pokes her own bridge several times to determine its depth, and adjusts…
If someone's seen Pietro? Well, the balance between his sister's nose and his own isn't great given they are fraternal twins. The subtle variations owed to masculine chromosomes makes the difference and locks some of the greater distinctions into place. If she had a layer she could flip on and off in software, it might well show the traces there, since influences defining the sexes do play out in subtle physical ways other than not. So it's not just hair in common, not really, when things end up skewed a little off true to make much more apparent connections to her features. She for an instant brushes silvered temples in and a shock of white at the brow — Pietro's own shade — thinks the better, and stops. Away that goes with a pinched flick of her fingers.
"You are the doctor sorcerer." Well, he is! Wanda looks up, clearly more than a little drained and possibly ready to devour the noodles in a single gulp. "I would tell you did I know. Who are the Kaplans? Why would he come back to us?"
*
Billy has forgotten his noodles, and stares at the illusion. He just stares. Then he stares at Wanda. Then he stares at the Doctor. His mind is not really processing all of this: he has parents, he knows them, he doesn't look anything like these people, what are they talking about? "It was Halloween and something weird happened. I was… doing something big, I can't remember what. And something else— another power— interacted with what I was doing and I was … ripped out of then and stitched into now. I was in Central Park, there was this weird blizzard. I didn't come back to anyone. Something… went wrong." He's told them that before, but he's left not really knowing how else to process this very, very weird conversation.
*
"Oh GOD'S BELOW!!!" The exclamation is just shy of a shout and Strange walks away from the kitchen briefly. Perhaps it's a few seconds until he reappears again in the doorway and this time, plunks down in an empty chair at the kitchen table. His hair looks like he most definitely ran frenzied fingers through it.
"Wanda, the Hellmouth. He's talking about the Hellmouth and how we closed it. It's - it's - a branching bit of fate, a ripple from the initial rip into our world." Billy is subjected to another close once-over and the good Doctor's expression shifts away from frustrated towards skeptical. "How are you related to me…?"
*
Ceasing in the spell, Wanda banishes the first by merely closing her fingers. The other remains in fine detail, eschewing a direct overlap for the more nuanced approach of a sculptor shaping out a tricky block of stone. Instead of directly copying two models or sketches, she has done one better and allowed the underlying material to speak to her: in this case, bits of memory, creative liberty, and the guidance of the spell itself.
Now, she settles at the counter and picks up the bowl. Chopsticks will have to serve here, though she is unapologetic at delicately shoveling the ramen into her mouth, albeit with her back to both of them. The girl is close to starving at the best of times, and sometimes food demands its due before anything else. Wooden sticks click together while she separates the crimped noodles and nibbles all the way down to the end, the broth infusion giving some renewed strength to her appetite. A sliver of carrot will vanish in a heartbeat, letting the other two talk while she suppresses as much noise as possible to allow for clear thinking.
Also, starving. No, she is not so shaken to hide from the pair of them united through one very obvious nexus. The scent of the soup cuts through the heavy atmosphere in the expansive kitchen. Rule one of most central and eastern European cultures, and the Roma and Jews included in that huge umbrella: no problem is so insurmountable that a meal will not improve prospects at least a little. In lieu of tea, it's the best she has.
"He said this before, yes." Her opaque gaze lifts, and she sheds the veil over her features, uttering a sigh. "Or it reacted. We saw already its proximity let me do the impossible with Pietro." Her gaze is so deep a plum it probably looks pure blue. "There was the lighthouse. There was Morgan. He is fully human, yes?" That much, Strange can probably tell them both. Billy receives a faint smile, an encouragement in a moment of absolute uncertainty.
Eyes can speak volumes without words, and those eyes turn upon the Sorcerer Supreme with quiet dignity, as wide open as she knows how to be in face of possible withering opprobrium, delivered with a scalpel. "«Beloved»." Tibetan, to the good Doctor. "«What I know is that there is no one else.»" Simple. Pointed. There.
*
The exclamation has Billy nearly jumping out of his skin, giving the sorcerer a startled look. The expression he gives the man as he returns is notably wary, "Related? I'm not." But his voice does not carry the certainty that it once did: he doesn't understanding at all what is going on here, and he's starting to regret rolling out of bed this morning.
Then they're speaking in some other language, which earns Wanda a little bit of a vexed look. "Look, I don't know what's going on here, which isn't that unusual lately because I don't know what's going on anywhere anymore. My mind is full of weirdness. I know JFK is going to be assassinated, but I don't know when or where. But what I do know is who I am. I'm Billy Kaplan. I'm, I don't know, a mutant I guess. My Dad's a Doctor, my Mom's a nurse. I still have the blanket that they swaddled me in when I was a baby and took me home from the hospital— Mom's kinda a packrat about that sorta thing."
"So look I don't know what you people are getting on about—" Because you are all BEING VERY WEIRD.
*
"I don't think — " Strange's response to Billy is cut off as he glances over at her. Yes, of course: the eyes slowly narrow as she repeats every damning piece of evidence back to him. His own are still that eternal-amaranthine, more towards frosted-violet than wine, and he looks over at Billy in lieu of her question.
Absolutely, the teenager is human, even with his ability to pluck at the strings of reality-proper. Ooh, Illyana is going to LOVE him and his powers.
Back to the duel of wills, of uncertain denial against blood-deep faith, and no doubt the young man sitting near to the Sorcerer can see him suddenly deflate in the face of the near-secret language between them.
Strange runs his fingers back through his hair before bringing his gaze up to address her. "«I do not doubt you, Beloved, never, not in that aspect of us. But…you must understand. The gods do not share.»"
Yes, yes, the kid is named Billy Kaplan, this is not anything new to Strange; the repetition gains him a side-glare. But then! The good Doctor sits back in his chair abruptly as he hears the president's name, brows knit tightly at his table-mate. "Wait, what did you just say? Kennedy is going to be assassinated?!"
*
To hell with politics for the moment. Yes, the SHIELD agent has a higher concern.
Magic gives shape to a stately, pretty tree with spreading branches. True, those branches are fairly heavily pruned where the forking smaller branches lead off into the mist. Delicate foliage splits into long chains of fernlike fronds, and then utterly awash in amaranthine blossoms tumbling in luminous sprays. However familiar the sight in Nepal or Tibet, this is a New World tree: the jacaranda.
The branching corresponds to faces or, in some respects, silhouettes of a masculine face or a feminine one in profile, like Victorian artwork, framed in a wreath of luminous flowers.
"Myself," Wanda states and draws a line to another bar. "My twin brother Pietro." A finger draws up the trunk to the second generation: parents. "Our mother was maybe called Marya. Our father we never knew. Another man was father to us." Follow that branching a step higher, and only the maternal side continues further. "He said my mother's people were from Transia. They traveled much. Marya was a witch, our grandmother was a witch. You, then, fit down here." Another shift and the tree grows taller, and plants Billy on the trunk under her. "I do not know how. A child? A grandchild? A cousin two ages away? I don't know. But you have the signs of our line that start with me. You have the look of us. And I have no answers save this."
Magic vanishes away, all of it, spilled out to the place whence it became. Billy's irritated, Strange is frustrated, and she is slipping to sit on the floor, with her knees drawn up to her chest and her chin on her folded arms. Dark, dark eyes shut and they are no more to her sight, at least for a time.
*
There's a slow nod from Billy, "Yes. Nice to know, huh? Now we can go save him… except we can't. Because I have no idea *when*, *where*, or by *whom*, so knowing that fact is just like… useless. I won't even tell you about some of the other stuff I know will happen that I can't do anything to stop." He shakes his head, looking a bit grim, "So knowing that is pointless. It could be at any time. Or it might be never: its possible it happened in my timeline, but here and now, won't."
Billy blinks at the tree, and furrows his brow as she shows the family tree in such a… visual way. He has to wrap his head around that thought: and he finally gets what they're saying, even if his expression is disbelieving, "My parents are just… normal, though. So are my brothers. I'm the only one… different. You're saying you're like maybe my … Grandmother?" He squints at the woman who is not like seriously that much older then him. Then he squints at Strange, "… and—"
*
Unfortunately, the young man from the future is right. No one will believe a phone call stating that Kennedy is going to be assassinated, especially with no date or time offered. In light of the recent reveal of the Asgardian faction as well as the mutants? Strange would be laughed off the phone. Gating in isn't an option either - he'd be shot.
Fate is potentially immutable. This hurts. It's a stinging slap of flashback to Kathmandu once more, in the fires of revolution, where he was unable to avert anything there because of fate.
He eyes the magical tree somewhat morosely. Denial has been shooed away for now. He's clearly related, in some capacity, to this gangly teenager sitting at the table with him. How much so? Even with how he scans the tree, quickly committing it to photographic memory, he can't really decide. Wanda. She seems to know more about this than he does and —
The slump of the Witch to the floor, aided by the cabinets, is cause enough to make him rise with speed. The chair scrapes across the floor loudly at his departure. He's kneeling beside her fast enough, reaching out to rest one hand on her shoulder while the other goes to interlace amongst her fingers.
"«Beloved. He looks of us, I don't deny it, not anymore.»" He swallows thickly and makes a point not to glance back at Billy. "«Should we tell him about ourselves? About my immortality? There is… Is he your son?»"
*
He cannot touch fate. The mantle upon Stephen Strange forbids that. Then there is Wanda Maximoff, upon whose presence entire revolutions have turned as she actively pursues strands of fortune alongside her mercurial twin.
Tell the likes of them no, and they just might take it as a point of personal honour — or a flung gauntlet — to go and prove everyone wrong. "Sometimes people die. Stop death now and it comes anyways down the road. She wears the mask of sickness or a steep road. A fire now, a flood tomorrow. A stray bullet." Words that slough tiredly through English are swiftly bound to take flight in Transian, since the wearied brunette is beyond trying to process the enormity of what she knows and puts forth into the world for confirmation or rejection. Sometimes the weight catches up to her and she can't keep moving.
The flat of her fingers rub against her forehead, roughly kneading from left to right, catching below the garnet-laced headband holding her long hair back. A rosy spider web she is never without has the toughest job of all. "«Cuckoo child»," comes out in Tibetan, for she at least can default to that rather than other options older still. "«I know why.»"
Her hands press together and she hides her face in the leather-wrapped cushion of her forearm, slimly padded as that is. "«If it happened now I would need a guardian. The art — your safety — comes first. A simple plan: convince someone to think he is theirs, me as a relation. I could make them believe it. A 'necessary evil' as Father would say.»" The facts fall, so many leaves from a tree shedding its autumnal glory in truth's scouring winds that leave nowhere else to hide.
A dark laugh dredges the bottom of the abyss, backlit by hope and some awful uncertainty yawning to swallow her up. Billy hasn't been forgotten by a long shot. He might mistake this as a private moment realizing their president will be murdered in cold blood at some point. Likely not. "Marya's father's gadzo name was Vilem or Vilim. Tamas was her brother. Tamas and Django." Her eyes narrow fractionally at the mention of this. "'The will to protect.' It means this. Tell him, love. If he is this, he should not be lied to. Not as I was."
*
This is starting to piss him off, and Billy doesn't really get mad. Well he does, but he doesn't, you know? He's a good kid, polite, brave, solid, dependable, but like, they're talking about him. He knows they are. And they keep speaking in some other language. And he is deeply confused and frustrated, "Look, it's kinda rude to … I don't know what's going on but I know… Now." He clenches his jaw, "Would you people please speak English? Speak /English/, speak English?!" He doesn't shout, but his voice gets sharper and sharper — and then at the end, something *changes*. Reality ripples, folds, cracks, and stitches all back together in the blink of an eye. There aren't any languages but English, at least not in this room, not anymore. Not for now, at least.
And Billy has absolutely no idea what he just did: though there's a look of confusion on his face as he knows he did something. Its probably not a good idea to go casting reality warping magic in the Sorcerer Supreme's house, though.
*
Ah, and now Strange understands. Mostly. The logic, while painful, is sound. The fact that she would consider taking on the red pinpoint of danger's scope to leave him out of harm's way? That won't fly in this Sorcerer's skies.
"Billy, just - for one second, silence!" he snaps, even as there's the odd sensation of warping around him. His mouth opens to continue in Tibetan and - silence comes out. The language is there, the words - all of the accents and consonants and diphthongs, but it won't come out.
OH. The feeling of reality changing. OH. That skinny teenager has rewritten all but English from the Sanctum's confines proper.
Slowly, the Sorcerer Supreme stands up and turns to face Billy. His arms fold and eyes, never having shifted back to neutrality, glow a bit brighter still. His jaw works visibly and brings those cheekbones into starkly unamused relief.
Low and quiet, with all the warmth of a winter storm. "Think beyond yourself for one goddamn moment, you arrogant little snit. You couldn't wait one more moment for us to finish talking? You have the self-control of a child. You want to be treated like one? Keep it up, by all means." He jerks his head towards Wanda at his side. "You see your mother doing that to me? Rewriting reality because she doesn't like the passing moment at hand? DO YOU?"
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 10
*
Too bad, sorcerer. Strange might not like the choices Wanda chooses for herself, but she shoulders her obligations without much complaint. Life has taught her the hard way, beaten it into the invisible scars on her back and soul. Still on the ground, the brunette goes quiet to let the doctor's will be done, a partnership allowing her to finally lapse quiet. She might prefer it that way even in company, exhausting her month's supply of words. Or a year.
Hugging herself within the circle of her arms, she presses her knees closer. One deep breath almost touches upon a sigh, longing and fraught.
The world changes on the granular level around them between exhale and blink, atomic clay melted down, spun on a potter's wheel, and fired in an outburst. Her expression will never be known, buried in the dark cradle of her arms, but the Sorcerer Supreme's wrath seeps into the foundations. Do silvery wards shudder in fell resonance somewhere? They just might.
Her head is angled a fraction for a moment too long, catching the requiem melody of her own aura. It agrees with her, if nothing else does, turbulent and majestic. If anyone else can hear it? The Lacrimosa is a dolorous sigh, swelling over the musical register through its own stately blending of minor and major keys, a collective vibration in soaring high notes.
Wanda remembers the scars lacerating a child's psyche. She cannot but remember her lessons bestowed the hard way, by deprivation and the lash of an ancient witch, so they couldn't be forgotten. Iron voices castigate her in every pause between her beloved's words, resounding down the corridors of history. "No. You are not to make things the way you want them. The world is not yours to change because you cannot have your way and you do not like how things are," she snaps, English or Transian or Sindarin, it really doesn't matter. Her voice stays quiet. She never yells. It's when she goes into that sibilant fugue that people need to worry. Motes drip from the witch when she puts her hand to the countertop and pulls herself out of that seated position. Bloody sparks spill around her in a halo barbed by thin, fine rays that pierce reality through the breast.
"Our gift has too high a cost for your childish misbehaviour. No." Atoms invert, roughly spun backwards when the bow-wave of her probability sphere blows over the kitchen. The witch subconsciously recognizes the effect for what it is — kindred! — and goes about disassembling it with all the joyous violence of a bullet-train at full speed smashing into an unfortunate deer on the tracks.
*
At first, Billy returns Doctor Strange's coldness with a bewildered look. "I didn't DO anything." he protests, though a little lamely. He kinda knows he did something: he just has absolutely no idea how or what. But he does flush, and clench his jaw, a boiling mix of anger and embarrassment rising up and fighting each other to try to prove itself to be the dominant emotion. Then Wanda adds to it, and the look that he shares with both of them is decidedly unfriendly. That is, right up to when his expression blanks and all his usual openness closes down and seals up tight. "If you'll excuse me—" And he stands up and turns, a ripple in the fabric of reality appearing around him as he prepares to fold it over and write himself away.
*
"Thank you, Rakshasi," the Sorcerer murmurs after he feels the wash of reality behind rewritten back to its true state. The Sanctum seems to ruffle itself and then preen things back into place. Strange's aura is still electric, crackling though not on an audible level, and the wards haven't retreated from their place near to the ceiling. It's not welcoming, absolutely, but what sort of scolding is? He's well-aware of the radiance still expanding from the Witch beside him in sunspots of scarlet.
"Billy Kaplan." - said with all the calm authority he possesses; the same tone he's used in the past with interns, with apprentices, and now with the blood of his beloved. "Is this your choice? Are you going to run every time things get too difficult to understand? You live with the outcomes of your decisions." He doesn't relax from his stiffened posture, clearly not in the mood for mincing about right now. "Is this it?"
*
Setting the sanctum to rights at the deepest levels doesn't actually take much time at all. There may be a few imperfections the brunette ends up turning over in her fastidious mental cleaning, a tiny cracked tile set to rights and another curling lick of paint that went without commentary being punched back into place as good as the day it was forged. It's not even fully within Wanda's control at this point other than enforcing a sense of will and whirling around like a playful dustdevil before the energy collapses into nothing. She will allow neither of them — or one, now — see her sway, holding onto the beveled edge of the counter with both hands firmly. It may be mistaken as a gesture of peace, or despair, however the simmering wave of emotions might be interpreted. Talking is for the birds.
"I am sorry." A dull statement, and pointed, is nonetheless genuine. Her emotions storm in their eagerness to get free, and are best kept under a pressure cooker lid until they wander away. Dad uses the Dad voice and Mama wants to put her face in her hands.
She disconsolately stares at the bowl full of noodles and her empty one, than reaches for the broken fortune cookie stashed away by the Chinese restaurant owner. Pulling it from its wax paper bag, she takes a piece and shoves it in her mouth. All that energy has a cost, and it will be paid on the spot. And there goes the unhappy look to resting her chin on her palm, elbow braced on the flat surface. Miserable? Yep.
*
"You obviously don't want me here, so I was going to go home." There is such a deep feeling in that word, home. It means something a great deal more profound then that place he lives. Billy frowns, the cool mask cracking slightly, "I get it, you both think I'm some freaking child, fine. That's your right, and I don't care. I was hoping I could learn enough so I could fix it and go home but all you people ever say is I'm not allowed to change the world. Well, I don't agree. Something broke and maybe I can fix it and put the world back the way its supposed to be. Besides." He frowns more and shakes his head slowly, "I'm telling you I didn't do anything. Its mightily unfair for you to heap criticism on my maturity me when I have absolutely no freaking…" He will not cuss, even when he's furious, he will not cuss. "…idea how I could possibly have done it if I even wanted to. Whatever it is."
*
Strange slowly tilts his head slightly to one side and gives the young man, who is mere seconds away from warping reality yet again, a patient look.
"You don't fix things by running away, Billy. You address them and then make plans. Right now, you say you don't know what you do. Fine. We all begin somewhere."
He places a scarred hand on the table and pats it once. "This is where we sit and talk. Right here, right now. You're hurt, scared, and lost - we both get this. Don't think that we both haven't been there at one point in our lives." His sigh seems loud in the space. The hand shifts to lightly rest on Wanda's shoulder. "We were discussing how you came to be. Wanda suggests that you come from a future where she is your mother, but may not have raised you. Pause for a moment and think. Breathe."
The Sorcerer's chest rises and falls in an obvious example; the Eye of Agamotto moves in time, still silent and non-judging. "If…" And he swallows hard before continuing, summoning bravery in the face of accepting a huge responsibility he would have never predicted, "Wanda is your mother, I will be your father. Sit and talk with us. As family."
*
"Not one time, many." Wanda's contribution is fairly short. The fortune cookie is gone, and the twin along with it. Had the bowl anything more to offer, she might devour it, but the main glut of ramen went lukewarm and Billy's bowl will not be something she plunders in such fragile circumstances. She cautiously circles around the counter and approaches, as though half-anticipating a pit to open up under her feet or a gate to fling her to the far reaches of the magmatic marshes surrounding the Brass City. Not the best place to go tumbling ass over tea kettle from a height, to be certain.
It's still easier than coming up beside Strange and sliding her fingers around his scarred digits, lending a little more stability. It helps not her skin is ice cold instead of burning hot, at least by Maximoff standards, but her reactions to fear and excess magic use trend extreme.
"Please." A simple request. It comes tagged, as they so often do. "English is hard. Say when I make mistakes or the words are not clear. I can fix it. No insult." She holds up her free hand, palm out, four fingers pointed directly upwards and thumb extended. "Changing me means I am not learning. Please let me try."
*
Billy sits down. Hard. He sort of gapes at Strange. Then he sort of gapes at Wanda. He's doing a lot of gaping. There isn't any reality warping going on, though. But words? Billy has no words. He barely has thoughts. He does manage, "… what? —" But its not really a question. Strange was really very clear and left no wiggle room for misinterpretation there. The words spin around in Billy's head and stick together and get pulled apart and Billy is just like: …
"I…" Nope, the Doc wants there to be Talking Like Family? Billy has lost his words.
Finally, in a small voice, he manages, "… are you sure?"
*
"I think you'll find, the more you stick around and decide to learn about these powers of yours, that neither of us mince words."
Billy is given a ghost of a smile that imparts forgiveness and invites further interaction. That the young man has already sat down is progress. Strange runs his thumb along the chilled feminine fingers that interlace with his and whispers a quiet Word in another language entirely. A glance down, still imbued with the Sight, should show a swirling of spring-warm heat - a subtle attempt to return the reassurance given and asked after in her choice to stand beside him.
"I think tea is necessary," he adds as an idle side-thought.
An outstretched hand, the one not occupied by his lover's touch, passes over the table, palm angled down- and outwards. "Tenir neram." Literally, 'time for tea', that's the Mystical command.
Cue the swirl of opalescent power, leaning more towards gold ultimately, and the tea set from the living room appears on the table within the rapidly-dispersing curl of light. Tea pot, three cups, all filled, plus the fixings - all on the tray from the tea stand. The Sorcerer delivers each cup to each respective attendee to this Family Discussion and sighs. "Alright. Let's talk."
He remains standing, for now. All the better to pace as needed.
*
Aww, Billy is a pout-pout fish! Who has that happy fish-face? Billy does!
Wanda will not shake like a leaf, made of sterner stuff than that, but she can still carry that somewhat shell-shocked burden of guesses proved maybe right and letting her emotions off their leash for but a few devastating moments. She still has to seek a path to recapture a balance between them, a fresher start and welcome defined by three very strong personalities. Of course it wasn't ever going to be easy. Which one of them is exactly a doormat?
"Yes." No doubt or hesitation comes there. Wanda frowns for a moment, then pulls her coat a little tighter to her collarbone. "Family is everything. For a long time we — Pietro, me — had each other only. He," a nod to Strange, "chose me. He is family. I would not fail my own blood. Neither does Pietro. He will understand you faster than I did." Her faith in her twin probably isn't misplaced.
The appearance of the tea sets her to reaching out for a cup and pulling it to herself, one-handed, without breaking that precious connection of flesh and blood and bone to the good Doctor. They're in this together, apparently, one by accident and the other by… jury's out on that verdict. A sip of the liquid, regardless of heat, becomes a grateful release of some stress. "I am both mystic, like him, and world shaper, like you. My brother is not. He has different gifts."
*
"In the future… I had a team." Billy hesitates a moment, thoughtfully, "There were a group of us, saving the world together, fighting evil, you know? Superheroing. There was my boyfriend and I, but then there was Speed. A couple others… But Speed? Tommy? Everyone joked that we could be brothers, we looked so much alike— only his hair was like white. But of course we weren't, because I met the Shepherd family and they weren't any relation to my family." He hasn't touched his noodles and couldn't eat if he wanted to, but tea? He lifts his tea and sips it.
That isn't really about this family talk, but… the thought comes to him and he just has to mention it. Billy purses his lips slowly, and then sips some more tea which requires unpursing, "So… you think my parents… the Kaplans… like, adopted me? And never told me?" That… hurts. That hurts a lot, in his voice. He loves his parents. Adoptive parents. The people who raised him.
To Wanda, he adds: "And that I get my… power, from you then? Can you do what I can do? I know you said you do something like it but what I do just seems so — involuntary. It just happens."
*
The Sorcerer nods silently, encouraging the young man to keep talking. In a rare moment, Strange adds honey to his tea. He needs the sweetness right now, no matter the base tastes of the herbs that darken the brew. The first sip is a big one and he squints slightly as it burns his tongue and throat going down. Yep. Might need some whiskey.
He leaves Wanda to answer the question in regards to the powers. After all, he might be able to warp reality - it's likely completely within the range of powers granted by the Vishanti - but he chooses to avoid it. However…don't think that inaction comes with inability and lack of knowledge.
However, he can add his thoughts on Billy's rather plaintive question in regards to his future parents. "It's entirely possible, Billy. This has no bearing on their love for you, remember this. That you came into their love means that they were the safest place for you, given…the high chance that you are indeed Wanda's child." The lines of his goatee shift in reaction to his lips forming unspoken, unfinished thoughts. "Mine…?" he finally adds, his tone completely uncertain yet almost…awed. Billy is given a closer look now; no doubt the Sorcerer searches for touches of himself with his own eyes, unbiased by Wanda's demonstrations.
*
It helps no one in the kitchen the Maximoff daughter's stock in trade are probabilities, and most of all, calculating their likelihood almost out of instinctive talent. She reads and breathes the strands of fate the way Strange peers at biological anomalies and decides they're tricky or not.
"I had much practice and learning. I think I can. You have not done practice with me too much." Yes, her English is getting rough due to distraction but simply falling back into German or Tibetan apparently will not do. Ruminating over a teacup is a good way to end up asleep on the table, so her steadied sips act as a tether to maintained conversation. "Control was easier when I knew magic. You see what you want in your mind. Then you make it be." Simplification of the sort, but something niggles away and she follows the threads back mentally while conversation drifts around her, a swimmer following a rope or a strange outline in the sand instead of letting the current carry her along.
Draining the tea through several small sips fortifies her throat rather than all at once.
"Speed. Speed? Fast, quick, velocity, sprightly. Quicksilver." Kerplunk. There goes one shoe. Her radiant halo coalesces in a spasm, frosting the chromatic violet outlines of Strange's, though it takes enchanted Sight to notice how they overlap all of a sudden instead of their life energy flowing over and around one another.
"Pietro's name. The one he chose in Berlin. He moves about time." Wheels are spinning anticlockwise in the mind; call her anything but Wanda isn't stupid. "He has white hair, blue eyes. The perfect…" Aryan ought to be on the tip of her tongue, but the witch gestures lamely with the teacup at the empty space across the table, and her voice is almost a flat prairie of stunned humour. "Tamas, Tomas is the gadjo name used for my mother's people. Used— yes. For twins." The other shoe hits the floor, proverbially, and she slowly tilts her head and stares up at the silver-dusted profile of the Sorcerer Supreme.
Does he need to be reminded of the higher incidence of twins found among Caucasians and twins born to twins born to…? Factors galore teasing with likelihoods, atop a wildcard that answers to none but her own whim. Or asking nicely.
*
"Yeah, Speed could run so fast you couldn't see him. That was his power: invaluable, really. Sometimes he could end a whole confrontation before I even had to think up a spell." Billy at least isn't making this twin connection thing at all; his memory is so filled with memories of the joking nonsense of their non-brotherhood in the future this doesn't really truly occur to him. So distracted is he that he lets slip a not-memory: that he used to do spells, something he doesn't think of himself doing now.
He hesitates, then he frowns, "Why do you keep telling me I can't change the world? See, I always saw it as my responsibility to use my power. I never understood where it came from, but I can do something no one else can. That means if anything happens that is bad that I could put a stop to— but don't— then its my fault it happened."
And finally, Billy takes a long sip from his tea, "I… don't think my parents would even remember if they adopted me now. They are written into the 'now' perfectly, as far as I can tell. So I can't even ask them. I don't know where I can get answers. I mean… Wanda, you're… you're what, a few years older then me? And my *mom*? What does this… mean? I mean I'm sure neither of you are all super interested in suddenly having some 18 year old kid."
*
Hmm…dunno. The smile, sure, but…it's not incredibly obvious to him. Billy's still too young to have grown completely into his skeleton and traces of similarity are not enough to convince the Sorcerer outright.
Even as Strange leans away from the young man, giving him a dubious look, he has an ear on Wanda's explanation. Tea is sipped…and then nearly spit out as the sudden flare of Witch-aura takes him by surprise. It's enough to make him force the mouthful down and look over at her with mildly-annoyed curiosity (the irritation coming from the lack of warning - don't try pranking him, he will leave you in the Mirror Dimension).
Okay, Quicksilver, sure - what a name, Strange prefers 'Stringbean' - but…wait, no. Tamas. Tomas. Thomas? Tommy. TOMMY.
No, dear Witch. He does not need to be reminded of the incidence rate. The logic is immutable and irreversible; the good Doctor cannot un-realize what just passed through his mind: twins. Again!
With great effort and self-control (and a promise to just have a passing touch of that whiskey hidden away in the Loft somewhere before bed tonight), he pulls his eyes from the depths of her wine-hued irises and then shoots the rest of his tea. Easily done and clunk - tea cup set on the table. His hands splay across the surface to prevent their shaking from being seen; old hat to Wanda, no doubt she notices the fraying ends of his patience for wave upon wave of new information this evening.
Billy mentions spells. The Sorcerer closes his eyes and rolls his lips inwards briefly. Wonderful. Yes. Okay. Have your laugh, Vishanti or whatever god(s) who sanctioned this twist in fate.
One last wrench of composure back into place, as surely as his mantle, and Strange straightens to stand beside the table rather than continue to lean over it. He looks at Billy with a keen edge in the face of a question he feels like he'll hear again, at least once more. "Because your decisions have repercussions and right now, I have to deal with them as they happen. I don't know what happened in your future that gave you so much free reign to use them, but I ask, as Sorcerer Supreme of this Earth and…", gulp, "your father, that you have some self-control and do your best to not change reality unless you are with one of us. Playing with space-time continuum can have lasting effects. Do not make me clean up the mess." Strange grinds his teeth a bit before shaking his head. "When you talk about 'fault', it's not your fault. It's fate. Sometimes, you must let things happen. It's terrible. I have stories. Ask me another time."
Invitation extended, but most definitely, for another time. The Sorcerer has the concept of twin boys to consider tonight.
*
"I said family is everything," the Scarlet Witch's voice is firm on that point, if distantly evoked because she cannot extricate herself from mind webs and affirming familiarities of profiles. "I thought I would have the traditional way first." A deep, unsteady breath centers out her constricted core, fighting the butterflies battering down her stomach with titanium wings.
A level look gives Billy a pointed consideration, glazing him in her amber-brown regard, so much like a tiger eye. "You…" Bravery, girl, even if he has a point. "You came here as you were wanted. Needed. My family closes no doors on you. If you are mine, then I have interest. Where I am, you have a place." Her puzzling over this settles on a point so she doesn't fall apart or spontaneously combust or blow off anyone's eyebrows.
"We find answers together. With some time. After bed. Sleeping. This is…" Her fingers curl around one another, hands clasped rather than crush anyone else to death, and those great eyes turned onto maker of all things sorcerous probably serve as a quiet question about his state of mind as much as any. Or whether she is about to be exiled for future crimes. "Much to take in." Especially for one who never asked for it atop his mantle and obligations.
*
Billy gives the Doctor a bit of a narrowed look: this whole 'don't change reality unless we are around' thing is very clearly NOT a topic that is closed for the young man. It wasn't that many days ago that he half-toyed with the notion that he was a grandson of Zeus, now he's the kid of a witch and a Sorcerer Supreme, and… Dear god, he is totally going to get drunk tonight. For the first time in his life. Ever. And this will not at all possibly go horribly wrong.
"Yeah. Much to take in." He takes a deep breath, "Is anyone going to have a conniption if I teleport now? I don't have any money for a cab and really, its just a lot easier." He waits and when there there is no objection, he opens the parameters file on reality and loads his character up, edits the coordinates of his location, and *blink*, he falls into a Billy sized hole in reality and vanishes a moment later. Its actually quite elegant an application of his powers, nothing like the rough accidental magic he does from time to time.