1964-06-15 - Seven Days in June
Summary: Gorgon Petragon has some seriously positive and enlightened ideas about terrigenesis. Does anyone agree?
Related: If there are no related logs, put 'None', — please don't leave blank!
Theme Song: None
gorgon vesper 


One might wonder if French expatriates hired by New York University ever get to go outside. Their contracts may stipulate one day in a fortnight to venture out for fresh food and air. Who knows what manner of research study she herself is, for the extra money. Twenty dollars for participation buys a lot as far as New York prices go.

Vesper is, predictably, in her lab. She floats between the table and the desk laid out with her models. Anyone witnessing them might be baffled. A complex design displays a full genome. The genome that should not be properly assembled yet. But, well, there it is. Paired and staggered between rubber balls and thin plastic tubes, a helix rises. But only a very few in the outside world beyond a lost city would understand what they see: a broken genome. Not fully human, of course. The fragmentary and additional bits are what make her unique.

What means she is not really herself. A lie in the flesh. The brunette is thin and clearly tired, poisoned. Restless. The work calls. The work must go on.


"Don't you ever go home?"

Gorgon Petragon is fiddling with some scientific instruments just outside the door — likely borrowed from another lab (or this one). He puts the items down and frowns at Vesper.

"You look tired. Have you eaten?"


The interruption to her lab, to the still familiarity of that private room, rings like a gong. It calls her to attention like the good little Catholic Frenchgirl she is. They go in lines of two by two. She breathes out shortly.

"Who?" A bit of English in the mix when she wants French, perhaps.

Her gaze comes up and settles briefly on the imposing figure on her doorstep. Imposing because how does Gorgon do anything else?

A sigh to follow. "Oui, j'ai mange." Because he's a nursemaid and a nun in one.


Gorgon frowns again.

"We… jay — what?" he remarks with a dubious look on his face. "Vesper, you know I don't speak Spanish." The big man puts his hands on his hips and accidentally knocks one of the instruments onto the ground with a clatter.

"That… was already like that when I arrived. Do you want to go for a bite to eat? You're too…" and his tilts his maned head to the side and lets out a breath.

"Weedy."


"French." Gallic pride has a place under all those unassuming layers. She haunts her table and blocks the genome project. Probably accidental as it happens. Hands grip the edge of the desk and allow her to lean back for some support. Her white labcoat and mostly immaculate chignon give the professional impression so important to maintain. "I have eaten. Sometime."

Her expression winces as a collection of test tubes hit the floor and shatter in a melody of broken glass in their case. Time then to reclaim a hand-broom and a dustpan hanging on the wall, safely out of reach. "What is this weedy you speak of?"


The large Inhuman captain of the Royal Guard approaches Vesper and eyes her up and down critically. Then he raises both hands, palms facing each other — about three feet apart — and slowly narrows the gap between them.

"Weedy… Thin. Likely to get stomped or blown over — like a thin plant. Eat more, fill out a bit — it will help with your eventual transformation too… although there's no telling what that will be. You'll just have more constitution to deal with it. Hopefully."

There really IS no way to tell what Terrigenesis will do to an Inhuman. It has turned people into living doors, butterflies, elementals and things much, much scarier.

But Gorgon doesn't mention all that. Yet.


He has more than a head over her height. Probably more, all things considered. Vesper is used to being smaller, sicker, slighter. She does not shrink away but she does not meet his eye, either. Modesty is something she learns and Gorgon just has to get used to.

"Oui, I am small. You are someone fit for a battlefield against a Roman legion by yourself." Maybe the Gauls wouldn't have lost to Caesar if he was kicking eagle-wielding bannermen halfway to the horizon. "You say the mists would make me sick or die because I am too small?"


Gorgon shakes his maned head.

"No. Not.. sick. There is no way to know what the Mists will do… until they have done it. But if you are as strong in body as you are in mind — and I can tell how strong your heart is by your tenacity in this very lab — then the process might be easier…"

A pause.


Vesper takes the broom and dustpan in hand, and then knees down to clean up the glass shards that might have spilled from the rack. Quick, short sweeps of her hand guide the sprinkled array into a pile. They will be easier to pick up, and she stands less risk of cutting herself.

"There is no promise I have even met the criteria for them, Monsieur Petragon. It would be a very nice thought for some to entertain," she replies. Her brow knits slightly. "You flatter me. I accept, though, my role may always be very small."


"The rules have changed," is Gorgon's reply as he steps out the way. "We are not in Attilan anymore, and there are Inhumans among the populace who need our help — you especially. You were meant for the Mists from 'day one'."

He frowns.

"Your… lineage is an important one. I don't know how much you already know — and there isn't much more I can tell you. Trust what I've said, though, Vesper. You are meant for something… great."


"Importance is not the matter." The sweeps collect broken glass. She gathers up the shards in the plastic pan and carries them over to a covered trash can. A press of her foot flips the plastic lid open, and the broken bits are dumped without ceremony. "I do not know," Vesper admits. A weariness lies on her, one that sets her shoulders into a lower, slightly uneven line under the sizeable white coat. "What this means, being in Attilan and not being in Attilan. Yes, it is significant and historically important. And it is something that keeps me up because maybe someone will be angry at my parents or me or I am clad miraculously in a story that ends when someone decides it will."


"Purpose is important," replies the captain. "And you have one — we all do. Discovering it… is the tricky part. As for your family… It is not up to me to reveal the full story to you — even if I had the full story."

A pause.

"Erm, sorry about the… thing. Shall we go somewhere to eat? I, at least, am hungry. I could eat a horse."


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