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Sometimes, the most reponsible need a break from the weight of mantles and worries. Soft rattling sounds echo throughout the Loft where, at a small table before an upturned box lid and with score card before each, the Sorcerer Supreme and his fiancee are apparently playing Yahtzee.
The silver-templed man throws and…two 4s and three 2s. He hums thoughtfully to himself and then takes up the pencil. "I'll take 2s, I think," he murmurs to the brunette across from him, smiling to himself. Not many options left to choose from for him. He then gestures to the Witch, looking at her with a hint of smirk. "Your turn, «Beloved»."
Some days, it feels like everyone and their cat has something to keep them busy. Regular activities or groundshaking ones: even the halcyon saviours of humanity require a rest. Wanda wears her hair up in a comparatively large bun, a crate of takeout from Chinatown in front of her. Her chopsticks move as she shovels vegetable fried rice, one of those amazing inventions of the US, into her mouth. How not to love the sticky, faintly moist balance and the jewel of an occasional carrot or pea fueling her rise to victory?
Because it /is/ fueling that, no matter how hungry she may be. She has to figure out the details, a cup filled with the five dice. Without even so much as blinking, she lazily flicks her wrist and the cubes go bouncing out. They tumble past, ending up three fives and two fours. She looks at them and then up at Strange. "Points. They look like a house."
"Full House indeed," Strange confirms as he eyes the dice's numbers. "Mark it in the appropriate section. Lucky you." He's not thinking, at this point in time, of the statistical likelihood of rolls falling in her favor. It's just a game to him, with the rush of faces falling just right in certain orders of numbers. He picks up the dice one by one, dropping them into the red cup as he goes, and adds,
"Vic came to me about learning magic. I suspect that he expected it to be an easier learning curve than once explaned. Even I didn't learn things overnight," and he laughs to himself, remembering being so stymied at Astral Projection for so long. A rattle of the cup, there go the dice, and…a Small Straight, 2 through 5. "Ah, excellent." He marks it down upon his score sheet. "Anyhow. I intend to set him upon the bare bones of the basics, to test his aptitude. Books and reading for now."
She has to exchange her chopsticks for a pencil, but Wanda manages that without terribly much difficulty, her dexterity never lacking. Fine motor control skills run in the family — see what her father and brother achieve, and there's no doubt there that the Lensherr line proves capable. She neatly writes down the points in the corner, then frowns to look at the numerals listed there. Perhaps nothing to do with the numerals at all. "You have good numbers there. They repeat." An almost languid ease flows through her from devouring the delicious rice, though her metabolism rips into the free form carbs available to her.
She slowly frowns a little at the mention of magic, less for its presence than the source. "He is not like a practitioner. His… makeup may make this difficult, yes? Easy to consume more than he has."
Her fiance nods in solemn agreement. "If there were to be any magic, it may have to remain ego-centric — from within rather than without. As I said, I still must ascertain if he has the potential. Some of us may not be able to access the Arts with ease, much less at all. Time will tell."
Strange then reaches across the table to pick up one measley grain of rice from her bowl and pop it into his mouth. He rolls it about his tongue before uttering a soft sigh. "…I do miss that from time to time…fried rice. I ate so much of it while on rotation at the hospital. Far easier to order carry-out than to ever consider cooking for myself, much less others. Your roll," he notes.
Fingertips slip from the thin bamboo skewers being used as chopsticks, flimsy mass produced things she sets aside to safely preserve them. Wanda reaches out to lay her hand over his, ignoring the cup and the dice below. A casual knock to it forty-two seconds from now will end up with every die coming up six. "The city does not have so many options that you can eat when night is here. Some places, the diner? But not very good when you are working." Wanda observes this with the knowledge of someone who is the equivalent of semi-nocturnal at the best of times. Trouble happens in the elusive hours between dusk and dawn so often. "A hungry occupation. I do not understand the job, why someone wants to work so hard and be always treated roughly."
Her gaze travels over Strange's face freely, languishing thoughtful regard on steel eyes and hard line of the jaw. "Maybe best to do this with great care. The seals feel thin. Best not to be pushed so hard."
The Sorcerer meets and holds those doubled golden eyes, catlike at all times to some degree. His smile grows faint, not vanishing entirely however under the weight of rueful realization. He rotates his hand to become palm-to-palm with the Witch and gently tucks her hand within the webbing of his thumb, all the better to rub idly back and forth across the smooth skin with thumbpad.
"It is nearing that time of year, yes… Thank the gods it's been quiet ever since the Hellmouth, but…I am aware of the risks. Perhaps another rallying about the globe, to test at the seams of the veils and do my utmost to keep them intact." He glances off to the largest window of the Loft, sporting the Anomaly Rue, and exhales slowly. Those keen eyes flick back to Wanda and his smile grows a touch. "Now is not the time to worry a rock so smooth, however. We were playing at dice."
Her fingers close around his, each digit confined within the narrowed troughs of his. Wanda holds that gaze in kind, the saturation point at her pupils bleeding outwards in a slow amaranthine crawl that overtakes the gilded dawn. Her amber shade never lasts long, the balance precipitated by nothing so spectacular as a kick of power. It simple settles their auras into a slow overlap, with the Sorcerer Supreme muddled on thoughts of a personal bent and the witch prepared to listen. "We are always sure to look. To test." Her nose wrinkles, a thought banished. Whatever it was leaves a weak impression, the insistence of measuring worry by real actions kicked into another gear. "You do your job well. The old one prepared you for it, quite well."
Her thoughts spin and that accent of Transia thickens, hinting at Slavic and Romantic collusions just to get her eyes off the business of Yahtzee. A nudge of the elbow, there the dice are. "End of October is not a good time. Not auspicious. A month? Two or three days offset, to avoid bad luck days on the calendar. We could find a church."
The gentle click of harmonized auras, like puzzle pieces falling into perfection, can be seen to relax him another notch yet. As their fingers do interwine, golden to scarred and on the pattern goes, so do the natural fields of the Arts about them both. His own eyes take on the deeper violacious hue in turn, forget-me-nots to blush at failing to recreate the color within his irises.
"I do try," Strange allows in gentle mockery at humility, most prideful of the Vishanti's Chosen. He tilts his head slightly, however, at her next thought. "Find a church? As to…what end precisely? And it is your turn," he reminds her, still curious by the way he regards his fiancee across the table.
Burning irises and stumbling flowers wouldn't compare to the shade they achieve in harmony. "To marry me, of course. I am not waiting for another year. You need a respectable house, I am not respectable. And when there is a chance this government makes us go, yes? Director Carter gives me papers. I'm not real to them." Her shoulders lift and fall, shrugging merrily, mischief painted around the crinkled edges of her eyes. Wanda does not need to rush or mince words. Her fingers have no trouble curling around the scarred reaches of Strange's knuckles and smoothing away the braided tributaries that unnecessarily complicate the difficulties of the flush. "Save me from the ravage of being only Miss Maximoff. All this danger now of being… how do they call it? An old maiden?" Not quite.
Dice forgotten. Oh — gods above and below, it was about marriage after all, despite his dubious options before him. Wanda gets the rare opportunity to see her fiance befuddled to silence for a moment, even a blink, and then he grins ear to ear.
"Gods below, I didn't think that…" He doesn't even need to finish that sentence, very certain that the Witch knows he was being the klutz in conversation. "«Beloved», you are…entirely respectable. I don't care what the rest of the community may think or say — they'll be wrong, every time," he gently insists, tightening his hold on her hand a touch. "And an old maiden…? No, I think not." His smile grows cheeky, showcasing the dimples passed on to their offspring. "But…yes," and he laughs breathily once, mildly flustered in a way that sets his heart to dancing delightedly behind his ribs. "We've a wedding to plan. Name the day."
Wanda curls her fingers to her lips, her knuckles impressed to flatten the full skein of a half-moon smile. Rare enough to even win that, she does not enter the foray into a territory of a laugh. Terra incognita, that. The Vishanti are not so cruel to bestow the threnody of a giggle from the grim witch they shaped through the crucible of black iron torment. Too late, she is already smiling.
"Not a maiden? No, maybe not. We have the boys to…" Her unblinkered understanding jumps a language barrier, hops over the hedge row, and runs away for the far horizon. Dimples indeed. They might have something to talk about on the matter of spinsterhood, after Strange explains what on earth a spinster is. "Friday of course. Frigga's day, a good omen. Better than Hera, yes? You can have the next morning to sleep late. I think they will let that happen." They. Tempting the gods is never wise.
"I would go to fisticuffs with Hoggoth himself in order to sleep in after my wedding day," the Sorcerer informs his tablemate with utter sincerity despite the crooked grin that breaks the lines of his fine goatee. Ah, but the smile — that's a thing of grace and beauty, as rare as catching sight of the Green Flash across the rippling silk of the sea.
"Friday it will be, whenever this Friday falls…and we have the boys to help as they can," he adds, gently squeezing their hand. "I have a feeling that they will be more than happy to assist. Your brother included, of course, he can…" The spoken line of thought breaks for a brief mental musing. "…help as well." Perhaps that particular decision is best left to the darker-haired sister, sun to the speedster's silvery moon.
Hoggoth in a fist fight with Strange over the honour of the witchling, flavoured with bits of threat and glares? This brings a papery look from the fates, surely, and Eternity sighing about his damn great-grandchildren messing about again. Goodbye frustrating little swerve of a smile and returning once more to her neutral mask with a hint of kittenish approval.
"Pietro can have it all thrown together or torn apart like bad buns. It is not a stress. We will make it of whatever you want. Wherever. No cow in a field, though. You must know some place," she says in a low, considerate tone. Her fingers squeeze his gently.
"No cow in a field, no." That's enough to make the man laugh, the warm sound loud enough only for the two of them. The crimson Cloak perks collars from where it rests on the stand by the master bedroom door, but remains there, content to listen as a relic best can.
"I know of myriad places, but…" A swallow and he appears almost mildly embarrassed. "«Beloved», it is not normally upon the man to choose the place. 'Normally'," Strange echoes, making mockery of himself even as he rolls his amaranthine-blued eyes and clicks his tongue. "We are anything but normal." A fond observation on his part. "I…have ideas, yes, but I would have your thoughts on things. A wedding requires two, after all, and your input has weight, «Beloved». Would you have it outdoors or within? Here, on Earth or…elsewhere? Small, large, our family alone, or shall we invite friends…?"
Wrong girl. She harbours no dreams of vast lace veils or trains slipping behind her for miles, no yardage of ribbons. "Not in Asia." That narrows things down a bit. A lot. Wanda slips her fingers to her hair, tucked behind her ear. "Kamar-Taj maybe, but not Asia. It is a place of sorrows for our line and not happiness. Pietro and I — we remember too much." The lost years shadow every sound hammered on the forge of her tongue, a hammer-strike from the Mountain King in his dolorous hue. "Tradition says a large party, yes? I think outside maybe, it will be the turn of the year and our lady is a being of the sky. I am child to Earth. It should be something that is where they meet to thank and celebrate them?"
Oh gods help her, Wanda has no idea, no more than he does.
Not in Asia is a good stepping-off point. It takes away an entire continent, after all. Stephen listens, his brows gathered in a thoughtful frown, and nods slightly as she expands further. His thumb continues the metronomic rub back and forth along the soft golden skin; it's always an anchor to have her hand in his own, whether he'd confess it to the world or not.
"I like how you think," he says in quiet earnesty. "Outside indeed, where the earth meets the sky… That speaks to someplace high, in the mountains perhaps. There are many ranges to choose from that don't exist in Asia. Though…the Himalayas are mythically a point where the Earth herself does reach for the stars. Perhaps…within the Mirror Dimension itself, at that altitude? All the better to hold warmth and better air within? I doubt many of the guests will appreciate the temperatures there at the highest peak. A man can go into shock within two minutes, apparently." He smirks, probably remembering a lesson from the past. "It could be a way to bring forth good memories, holding the wedding there? I did propose to you at the lighthouse, after all, where Morgan's shadow once lay long over our peaceful world. But…" He gives the Witch a look so incredibly fond that even Billy might gag in his apartment, all those miles away, on a whim. "We have time. We'll figure things out. We always do." A final squeeze of her hand and he brings her knuckles to his lips to kiss them. "Still…your roll."
At one point, the white cubes roll from the cup and the Sorcerer looks up from them to Wanda and squints. "…you can't roll four tens." But alas — the dice were ever in her favor.