1964-10-27 - Pointy White Hats
Summary: The 'Klan' has come to town. Good luck getting past Quicksilver.
Related: If there are no related logs, put 'None', — please don't leave blank!
Theme Song: None
pietro-maximoff wanda 


Hallowe'en generally means pumpkins and costumes dredged up from basements, or frantic mothers in front of their sewing machines trying to lay in another line of sequins. The idea of store-bought costumes is practically an anomaly in this day and age, and every fabric store hops. Capitalism at its finest pours out chunks of chocolate and mountains of tricoloured 'corn' with nothing in common with the actual vegetable save an overabundance of syrup, perhaps. Spiders crawl down storefronts, cobwebs are in the air, and a skeleton deemed too spooky ends up stowed away in a teen's room. All of this is true for East Village. None of it is really true for Mutant Town.

Oh, the children still talk about their costumes. Some effort at fanfare and festivity abound. Pumpkins are fewer, many of the gourds plastic or paper-mache. Signs in construction paper and abundant black paint call out happy greetings for spooks and spectres. White ghosts seem to be the most popular. Take a tissue, twist it round, and voila, decorations. Several younger kids have lit up the community center with such tattered remnants, not holding up well in the dull rain that splatters down and fills the gutters. An ominous air loosed by recent violence hangs over the air.

Wanda sits on a rickety iron fire escape, her legs crossed, the classic position of when she needs a ring of candles and a pentagram. Communion with the elements is easy, particularly the wind chattering with harmonics of chanting fools who wander up the street in their white hoods and favourite white jammies. The route they take in from East Village is a bit too roundabout for a protest, but anyone in the US knows what the hell a pointy hood means if they're outside Salem.

Her eyes open. They're children of a Romance language and a Slavic background; Transian is close enough to Romanian to be half Latin, anyways. And their chanting sure isn't Latin down there. Her back stiffens slightly as she watches the procession of six make their ominous rumblings to send off two children, fleeing for the safety of a barber shop. "«Why do the churches thrive in a place like this? They say we are godless. Yet they seem far from God too.»"


Pietro Maximoff looks out of place, both for his lack of festivity and for his luxuriousness. A lifetime of struggle and toil left him with a taste for finer things, for luxury, and it manifests itself foremost in his clothes. He wears a white leather longcoat over a simple blue sweater, cashmere dyed a dark blue with a thick, layered collar around his throat. He indulges himself in a cigarette, French silk-cut, hand-rolled and trailing a plume in his wake as he paces a bit. Staying still simply isn't something he does easily.

«Because churches sell hope the way seedy men on television sell cars,» he replies to his sister. «They call us godless because, as always, people imagine their gods to be like them, magnified reflections of their own twisted values. They think us godless because, in their hatred, they cannot imagine a god who could love us and be loved by us in return.»

«Personally, I could do without any of it. Simple poison for the mind, insofar as I can determine. Perhaps some of the Eastern paths have a value, but even that promotes monks and priests to undeserved status for their devotions.» he sneers slightly. «At least the pagans knew how to enjoy themselves," he says, gesturing to the Halloween decorations.


One day Wanda will ask where he gets those clothes, and on exactly whose budget. The five fingered discount? Her own wardrobe is so steadfastly the same - black, black, and scarlet - that she probably would be a terrible person to ask. That, and she can literally conjure her own clothes out of thin air to amuse herself.

«These twisted values are on display all around. They will set off a keg of dynamite with their words.» The notion does not sit well with the witch, her dampened reflection in the dull, wavering window opposite the building showing the stress of contemplation. She arches her back and reaches for the railing, pulling herself up. «I am a pagan, by their standards. But then I have responsibility and duty.» She reaches her hand out and tests how stable the rusty bar is. Answer, not very. Probably wiser to float down than jump.

The ceremonial mass performed by the Klansmen doesn't seem to be earning much approval from the residents. The older ones know better than to snarl, but they do spit into the street or head inside, refusing to give anyone an audience. Aww.


«Can one be an unbeliever, even having seen as much as I have? Well. I certainly try. I know the supernatural is real. But I've yet to be convinced that there's anything beneficent about those beings beyond this realm. Certainly nothing I've seen would qualify as holy» he says.

He watches the ceremony with open disgust, his white hair swept back. He doesn't actually steal his impeccable clothes. Does he steal the money he uses to buy them?

Well. Perhaps.

"I'm of a mind to wrap a sheet around the lot of them and drag them into the bay," he mutters aloud in English.


«Perhaps.» Giving a delicate raise of her shoulders, Wanda departs from the landing. The stairs require careful negotiation, slippery handholds that she cautiously attempts with boots and firm grip required. Rust flakes off on her descent, a dark cascade to powder the ground as she reaches about as far down as nine feet, where the ladder summarily stops.

She could ask Pietro if he feels like being a hero. Obviously his thoughts are elsewhere, and she pushes her feet off the wall, gaining enough leverage to clear the remaining metal as she releases.

It's a bit of a drop, not a hell of one. The plummet might be more concerning did her eyes not immediately glow a luminous bruised plum shade, the bands of telekinetic force absorbing much of the impact when she hits ground in a crouch. See, little sister is gaining some useful independence.

Drifting up behind him, she glances over Pietro's shoulder. «I like nothing that requires uniforms and parades. What is this? You might do that.»


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