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Lorna sighed as she shuffled around the Sanctum in her Pj's and slippers. She was bored. She'd finished what work she could stand to finish, Miss Frost had sent work over as per her father's request. She could be stuck here for another whole week! Ugh, the thought was disheartening.
Brown hair was tied back into a messy ponytail and she plopped into a plush chair with a groan. "So bored. Ugh…" She whined to the empty air, because really, what else was a college freshman to do when she was stuck inside?
*
Were Lorna the Mystical type, she wouldn't be bored, believe you to me. The Sorcerer Supreme would have her jumping through hoops and flinging spells at incoming projectiles because self-preservation is something everyone should bear in mind when dealing with just about everything life throwns one's way.
However, she's not the Mystical type and a guest and her father is staying with them as well, so it's more that Strange treats her like some variation-on-the-theme-of-Illyana: with professional respect and candor. Bump-bump-bump, down the grand staircase beneath the window showcasing the Eye of Agamotto stylized, and then to the living room with cup of tea in-hand. Maybe that's where he left the last book he was reading on the life-cycles of the living-dead of the Thirteenth Dimension. Yes, the one with tentacles. That some foolhardy practitioner actually stayed long enough there to take notes speaks to either unquestionable bravery or questionable predilections. He doesn't care to entertain which.
Upon entering the living room, with its high-backed chairs paired before the fireplace and one length sitting couch tucked against the wall, he pauses as he spots young Miss Dane ensconced in one of the chairs. Clad in sweatpants and a bathrobe, he's clearly not long from showering with the wet in his hair and not exactly the presentable state of his mantle.
Oh well. Not like he's going to linger. Sipping at his tea, the good Doctor strides across the floor and picks up the small tome from the desk beside his personal chair. It gets slipped away into the pocket of his red bathrobe and she's given a small smile of greeting.
"Miss Lorna. Slept well last night?" Simple enough conversational starter, right?
*
Lorna sat up as Doctor Strange entered, instead of the sprawling slump she was in. "Morning." She smiled, and sheepishly ran her hands through her tangles of brown hair. "Ehh yeah, I mean, it's being in a different place that I'm not familiar with and all, so.. yeah there's that. But that whole not having to worry about anyone coming to kill me is really nice too. So I mean, it's good for sleeping."
"Uhh and uhm.. thanks. For having me here."
*
Too bad for all those living in the Sanctum. The kitchen is nigh empty. Fruits are reduced to pits and stones, husks and rinds of vegetables stocked up in the trash or whatever compacts them by devouring organic remains. Two pounds of honeycomb, dusty with goodness and sweet sugar, have spontaneously vanished over the last nine hours along with a half-empty bear of honey left surreptitiously upside down, hanging by a spell that won't fade for a day yet.
The ruby-throated hummingbird responsible for this mayhem is curled up on a couch that may have been a chair or some other furnishing at one point. To the experienced eye, she looks thinner, more translucent, sunbeam rather than full sunshine.
The couch wasn't there a second ago. Now it is. Groggy witchling lifts her head, and dusts golden crumbs off herself. Anyone wonder where the honeycomb got off to? Clearly a very tiny mouse curled up with Wanda, who has deep orchidean bruises under her eyes, semblance of someone who is exhausted or unlikely to sleep well in the last twenty years. Maybe ten. Presentability on all sides is questionable except for her.
Her black dress? That's new, since she owns exactly two dresses, and one never gets worn for odd things. Whatever her fingers are wrapped around is peculiar: it resonates weird, and Strange probably knows an alien artifact when he sees one. This particular one has odd writing on it, does not upset the wards o'er much - it's inert tech, nothing serious - and is held tight in her hands.
"«Ya-?»"
…Don't finish that sentence. Don't even by half. A scarlet ribbon slides off her shoulders, catching her straight hair, unspooled with a threnody of pointed, staccato mystic script on it. Sigils that basically assault the eyes with irate touch. Automatic writing is a thing, and Wanda may just practice it.
"Oh. She's not here. She is here?" Blink blink.
*
Very much getting acclimated to the various appearings and disappearings that occur around the Sanctum (a sock has gone missing…yet again…), the Sorcerer merely glances over and takes another sip of tea. The swallow is followed by a knowing smirk and lightly-arced brow before he wanders over to stand before the couch.
"I wondered when you'd wake," he murmurs, only now revealing the concerned expression with the facing towards the Witch. The relic is noted with a narrowing of eyes that nearly seals off the Sight-brightening irises shifting up the visible spectrum in color. Her sigils are blazing, yes, and he blinks a few times before letting out a slow sigh. "Once you're fully awake and comfortable — " and by 'comfortable', Strange means not looking like two burnt holes in a wet blanket, " — we need to talk as why I had a screaming migraine for hours." To others, he may have growled; this is Beloved, ergo, the sentence is spoken with the essence of a patient request. "Shall I take that then?"
The hand not occupied by a tea cup stretches out and remains so in order to procure said alien relic.
*
Lorna was up and out of her seat in as fast a motion as she could at the appearance of Wanda and she was stepping on tip toes toward her sibling, half sibling? Proto-sibling? She still wasn't entirely sure, but accepted it anyways.
"Wanda?" Her brows lifted as she lingered by the drained woman's side, not too far from Strange himself. "You don't look so good." She crouched slightly, her gaze falling to the odd object in the woman's grip as Strange pointed it out.
A head tilt followed and the mutant stretched out her senses over it, trying to figure out what it was, whether it had metal that she could manipulate in it or not.
*
The relic is handed over; it's not anything particularly interesting. The ribbon on the other hand is certainly so, and she hands it over too. For good reason: Wanda's name is not the one written in an ancient language used frequently in grimoires, at least not by title. "Soon," she agrees, consent wrapped up in a single word. Those hazy gold eyes soften to another blink, and she looks past the skim of Strange's shoulder towards the brunette taking up residence in their halls. This, too, is likely known.
Still, pushing herself up from that supine position takes a bit of effort, and her braid slithers around her back as she gets upright. "Lorna," she murmurs. No anger, no territoriality there. Instead she offers slightly raised brows, and the back of her hand stifling a voluminous yawn entirely feline in nature. "Worked too hard. Does it happen with you? You get very, very hungry?"
*
Another pocket, another item, and now the Sorcerer is full-up as Mystical pack mule. Alright, not quite, he has a spare hand, but that one is taken to scratching briefly at one silvered temple as he watches Wanda slowly sit up. Yikes, whatever it was that required such a force of willpower from her must have been impressive and important indeed. No wonder it felt like his skull was fair to split.
Sipping at his tea, he glances to Lorna and then back — and then sighs. "I'll need to go grocery shopping again, won't I?" Rhetorical question, more tease, as he looks down on the Witch with fondness.
*
Lorna lurched up onto the couch beside Wanda, carefully taking up the space where witch had just been as she sat up. A smile pulling at her lips as the magically dyed brunette reached up to try to promptly glom her sister with a gentle hug. "Nope! I just get tired. Well, I mean, I dunno if it's cause of my powers or not. I mean.. normally when I'm using my powers, okay.. well.. I mean.. I get problems more with focusing on multiple things. It's like juggling. If I'm focused on one thing then other things get crazy.." She trailed off, pursing her lips together in thought.
*
"New Zealand and Kashmir," Wanda reluctantly offers, forsaking the possibility they could just traipse down to the local supermarket and filch up a plastic bear full of golden liquid all over again. "I'm sorry," she adds, covering a whole spectrum of emotions and opinions in the same moment. With company present, she is not about to throw herself into the embrace of the rubicund cloak and its bearer, still wet from the shower. The promise lies there all the same, a shuttered lantern of her lowered lashes and averted gaze not wholly up to the task of concealing a blinding lighthouse on par with, say, a quasar.
One simply does not discount the way sorceress responds to sorcerer, the tide between them immense in its subdued way.
The hug nonetheless is taken in good measure, a serious improvement over freezing up or pulling out a knife. Proof for Strange, he's rubbing off on her mannerisms or maybe Lorna gets a pass through the prickly defenses by shared familial lines. It's more proof than anything else, other than the dramatic cant of their cheekbones. "When you do too much, there are problems. It has a cost, power. Magic or power always will. Mine has been called today. Night." A fix as she ticks a look to the window.
*
"New Zealand and Kashmir it is." If the patient needs a certain medicine, no reason to deny her of it. "And don't apologize," he adds, leaning in and pressing a kiss against her dark hair with its tendrils that have a propensity to escape from its braiding. He's careful not to spill tea on anyone's toes. "It doesn't look good on you."
Retreating a few steps, Strange directs a nod to both young women. "I'll be back in a little while. Behave while I'm gone, hmm?" His tone takes a middling point between tease and dead-serious reprimand. Bolting the rest of the tea, he sets the tea cup on the side table of his sitting chair and then makes his way back towards the foyer, on a mission for exotic honeys. At the doorway, he glances over his shoulder once more and aims a softer look in the Witch's general direction. Then, it's upstairs to the Loft and the distant disturbance of Mystical magic signals both change of garb and Gateway out.