|
  |
It was a slow day, though there were not many fast ones in this part of Spain. The commerce continued at a lazy pace through the Siesta hour, the markets opened to pedestrian traffic though not endeavoring to sell anything in particular. The balance of tourism and therefore populace seemed to concentrate in the gladiatorial arena. Rebuilt in the 1920's, the Plaza de Toros de Pamplona boasted a meager crowd today in comparison to its full potential. This did not reduce the din of trumpets and ceremonial aplomb though as the afternoon show began.
And among the din of both blood-hungry and curious, a blonde youth sprawled in the front row. His blue-eyed expression seemed to be distracted from the center of the ring, where bullfighter was presenting himself to the crowd formally, a cigarette dangling from between his fingertips and lazily pulled on from time to time as he regarded the beginning of ritualized blood sport playing out just beneath his feet with disaffected attentions.
*
Hope arrives from RP Nexus.
*
Hope has arrived.
*
Lorna had been scanning the city as soon as she'd been able to clear her mind enough to reach out with her senses. Constantly she looked for the signature of the knife she'd given Seth. The mixture of various alloys had been her own blend and when pinged off her magnetic senses, it was different enough to her senses that she should, in theory be able to find it.
But she had nothing near to her father's miles of magnetic pull. So she was left scanning everything.
The arena had been an accident, one where she'd been swept up by the crowd and found herself over-heated in her winter coat. The weather was warmer than in New York, and the brunette, peeled back the woolen outer layer when she found a fairly quiet corner of the chaos.
Perhaps it was luck, or fate, but she sensed that knife. The subtle mixture of iron and the hint of colbolt she'd laced into the grip.
Like a bloodhound, she wove through the crowd, coming up from behind toward Seth and straining a hand out to tap at his shoulder as she did so, squeezing between two other Spanish speakers that chattered about her rudeness as she passed. "Seth!" Brows pinched as she approached. Brown hair pulled back into a high ponytail, and dressed in rather sensible looking pants and a floral printed T-shirt.
*
The music down-turned to a twostep beat, signaling the entrance of the first bull. The flash of purple from within the ring turned the sandy surface into a whirling array of color and cloth while the matador's assistance took the soon-to-be-slaughtered brute through the initial steps of this macabre dance. A tap of ash from the end of the stick the youth pulled on, his focus aligning upon the woman who called his name. There was a moment of perplexed confusion that slipped over his features, a complete lack of recognition of this woman in such a time and place as she presented herself. Then a smile warmed his lips and the cigarette was tossed to the ground at his feet.
"Holy shit, Lorna?"
The seat beside him was left open, khaki slacks and a collared shirt keeping the late afternoon traces of heat off of his well-groomed appearance. Instead of standing to receive her, he simply gestured to the place beside him, as if she had not been searching for him relentlessly for months and his sudden appearance was thus meaningless if not expected.
*
The mutant wasted little time in sitting down, how he could swear and then offer just a blase response didn't even register. No, when Lorna finally reached him she was making to throw her arms around him tightly and decidedly not letting go anytime soon. Despite the roar of the crowds, the very oddness of seeing him so neat and clean and well dressed.
There was little time for actual thought as the young woman just clung to him. "I've been looking every where for you! I worked with the Brotherhood, Seth! Oh my God. I can't believe you're okay. You're really here!"
*
As her arms bring their chests colliding together, he practically falls out of his chair, pulling her carefully against him as the crowd remained rapt in their focus on the other display occurring in the ring below. Silence met her onslaught of affection, uncurled only by a light little laugh as he returned the hug and shook his head slowly. He smelled clean, like fresh soap and shave oil, only a faint edge of acrid smoke and good wine on his breath. Yet the musculature was the same, perhaps more pronounced than before, the slender and hollowed parts of his frame filled out with good food and whatever purposes Mojo had determined he could serve.
"Hey whoa okay, it's okay. Yeah, I'm right here I didn't realize you were looking for me? After our last conversation, I guess I just figured-"
And he trailed off, swallowing uncomfortably as he looked quietly down at her exhausted features.
*
Lorna drew back, her eyes swimming with damp that she stubbornly refused to let fall. "I got attacked and my tata had me locked up with family for my safety. I couldn't get out often, but when I tried to find you.. you were gone! No one had seen or heard from you. I thought you'd been kidnapped by the guys running Vigor on the streets. I helped Raven to try to get information about where you'd gone!" Her cheeks flushed as she rubbed at the corners of her eyes furiously.
"I got my nephews, and as many powered people as I could find to try to track you down! I nearly brought that building down 'cause I thought you were gone for good." She sniffled, and her voice cracked faintly.
"And here you are being all fancy and watching bull fights in Spain!" She punched his arm, none too gently.
*
Seth seems distinctly uncomfortable with the high emotions raging across her features, or perhaps unresponsive to them, staring openly as she spilled forth all of the effort she had put into finding him. The apparently worth he had perhaps contributed to the befuddlement, glancing down at his attire as she drew attention to it and wincing from the blow - more out of surprise than actual hurt.
"I uh-I'm sorry?"
He finally managed weakly, seemingly unsure of what was expected of him in these circumstances but hoping the sentiment defrayed some of her indignation.
"I wasn't expecting to leave like I did, but after I got on the show and had a place to live and a paycheck, I just figured nobody would miss me so-"
He trailed off and pursed his lips, twitching them to one side in a seemingly perplexed state.
*
Lorna's expression crumbled and she drew back, sitting weakly back into the seat that he had earlier gestured for her to take. She hung her head, her hands crushing her coat between her fingers. "So you don't need help. You.. you're okay." She swallowed the hard lump that formed in her throat, her green eyes flickering toward him from the corner of her gaze and away.
Teeth snuck out to steal her lower lip, and she turned an unseeing, distracted gaze to the violent entertainment before them.
A breath, a sharp exhale followed from her nostrils. "What.. what I did was pointless?"
*
Seth blinks at the torment that stole across her features, gently reaching out to turn her eyes back to his own as he softly interrupted her suffering to interject,
"I missed you, Lorna. I'm glad to see you again. It wasn't pointless. I actually was hoping to see you again."
After a pause he smiled and attempted to smooth some of the hair away from her features as he gently continued,
"Mojo wanted to meet you. I mean, I know ya'll got off on the wrong foot with the whole studio destruction at all, but he's really pretty great. After all, look at all he's done for me. Not that you need that kind of help but-"
The thought slipped away and he shrugged weakly, mirroring her usual motion of biting his lower lip
*
Lorna turned to look back at him, her brows furrowing as he tugged her focus back around to him and brushed her hair back. A blink, two and then a third one as she stared at him openly, a frown stealing over her lips. "Seth, we argued about you cleaning up and getting a job and everything before! This is.. this is all I wanted for you, to be.. to be well off and .. and.." She shook her head, and drew back from him faintly.
"Who is Mojo? Why does he want to see me? Is he that thing that Hope saw? That thing from that other dimension? Seth.." She trailed off, crossing her arms as the crowd roared at something going on in the ring before them. She wasn't paying attention. No, her focus was on the blonde before her.
*
Seth laughs at her sudden questions, nodding slowly before he corrected,
"Yeah he's a bit dramatic but that's what you'd expect. He's an entertainer. Interdimensional, galactic being. All that aside, he just likes to put on a good show."
There was a casual shrug as he straightened his sleeves, and then continued non-chalantly,
"He's not the worst boss I've had. Certainly is responsible for all of this bull fighting and international travel and private apartment thing."
*
His nonchalant demeanor had her frown deepening, and she eyed him with a flicker of apprehension in those green eyes of her's. "Then why does he want to see me? I'm not out as a mutant. I wrecked his studio." She squared her jaw, her hands closing into fists briefly. Her gaze lingered on him, on the line of his shirt, well made and fitted correctly. Such a far cry from how she'd ever known him.
"Seth, this isn't like you." She whispered, "You were so uncomfortable with everything at the mansion when I tried to get you cleaned up for the holidays. And now you're fine with all of this?" She gestured toward him and then around. A flicker of hurt coming to life in the edges of her voice and in the strain around the edges of her eyes.
"Gone for weeks and… and you're just .. you're fine?"
*
Seth narrows his eyes slightly, the apprehension in her gaze twisting his own open expression into defensive sneer.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you? I am a survivor, Lorna. I always have been. It's the one thing I'm good at."
In the ring, the first blood had been spilt on the sand. The crowd drowned out any possible discussion for a moment while they weighed each other, and Seth reached for another cigarette. He lit it with a snap of a lighter, exhaling the opening drag away from her features and into the distant sea breeze.
"He is accustomed to having his studios destroyed. It's part of his business model, to be honest. He employs a long list of folks with special abilities and powers. I know you don't need that kind of a gig, but he was thinking maybe a special show. Could put a mask on you. Rip a car apart or something while it's being driven towards you at high speeds."
*
A slow shake of her head followed, a million possible questions raced over her features and in her gaze before she turned away from him as he lit his cigarette, her nose wrinkling up as she waved a hand in the air between them as it drifted her way. But she didn't say anything. She kept her silence for a long while yet as the roar of the crowds drowned out anything else for a long moment, two, and then three. She let the silence deepen between them.
"I'm glad to know that you're safe and okay then." She finally bit out. "I'll call off the guard, as it were." Her voice was wobbly even to her own ears and she paused to swallow another lump that had formed in her throat.
"But I'm not interested in putting on a show for anyone." A hand dragged through her bangs, dragging them back from her face as she exhaled a shaky breath and slumped forward in her seat.
*
The youth curled a lip at her words, shaking out his gold hair with a touseling of fingertips.
"Yeah, I mean, I would expect you to be-"
Above that came out, but it burbled and burped, as if there were water in his airways. He paused at the hitch in his voice, gasping for a moment as he hunched over the sensation. The new cigarette fell from his hands to roll forward and into the arena. The crowd roared again, drowning out the weak little whimper he keened around.
"I got to go."
The words were managed as an excuse, stumbling forward, beginning towards the aisle before going to his knees. He stepped on two people trying to get free of the seats, and didn't even pause when they swore at him in Castilian Spanish. When he hit the stairs to the nearest exit, he collapsed on the cement writhing around an unseen pain, blue eyes staring up at the sky of similar color.
By now the other spectators were distracted enough by his suffering to watch this new spectacle, a few gasps of concern and tittering about seizures or perhaps a fit of some sort. And then the murmurings turned to screams, Seth's flesh melting in sloughing rags, soaking the fabric of his clothes while the bones snapped like chalk dusting into the agonizing death of something that was Seth but wasn't quite.
Then there was only a steaming pile of clothing and remnants of not quite flesh. And the knife with four letters that belonged to someone still lost to the winds.