entrancelogs | [OPEN] Can the city forgive;

Entry tags:

[OPEN] Can the city forgive;

Who: Wanda Maximoff & you!
Where: Training Center & Magic Training Room
When: 10/21
Rating: PG?
Summary: Slowly but steadily, Wanda is learning to trust herself and her powers as well as her teammates, but there's always room for more practice.
The Story:

[The morning of the 21st finds Wanda in the Training Center shortly after breakfast. It's still empty when she gets there, although she's sure it won't stay that way for long-- she expects people to trickle in throughout the course of the day, teammates and other Wonderland residents alike, but she likes it best when it's quiet. Over time, she's improved when it comes to working with her teammates, but she still feels safest when she has the opportunity to practice alone. She hasn't had any accidents since arriving in Wonderland, but she still doesn't quite trust herself-- or how much stronger her powers seem to be than she first realized.

She spends the better part of the morning training with the targets provided, flinging hex bolts of various sizes and strengths, testing and aiming to refine her control over distance and impact as well as aim. Steve was right when he told her that she would learn more when there was another party involved, especially when it came to having to think on her feet, but she maintains that there are certain things she can only do by herself, things that can only be properly tested and practiced in a controlled environment.

Late in the morning, one of her bolts goes rogue and damages one of the dummies she'd been practicing on more severely than she'd intended. Grimacing, she levitates the target itself from its post and detaches it, bringing it to her rather than walking over to investigate, turning it over in mid-air before she passes a hand over its body, focusing until the metal itself begins to bend itself back into shape, mending.

The rest of her training goes mostly without incident, and after lunch she dips into the Magic Training Room. While she doesn't have any lessons planned with Billy today, she's been meaning to take the time to spend an hour or two looking through some of the books in the collection he's assembled during his time in Wonderland. As it turns out, she ends up staying there for the better part of the afternoon, and can be found either perusing the shelves, investigating potion reagents, or sitting in front of the fire with one of the books she's helped herself to.]

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Brennan happens to have misplaced his mage for the afternoon, so the first place he checks for him upon coming in from his own daily training is the magic training room young Billy had provided. It's a favorite haunt of Dorian's, but today the room is quiet and all but empty, except for the young woman he spots as he steps inside to glance around for his lover.

When she looks up, he flashes her a sheepish expression. "My apologies, miss. I didn't mean to interrupt your studies. I thought I'd find my companion in here."

She doesn't startle when he enters, remaining comfortably still almost as though she'd been expecting him, but she doesn't look up until he begins to apologize, offering him a faint, lopsided smile and a controlled shake of her head as she lowers her book, letting it come to rest in her lap with one finger carefully marking her place, just in case she decides to close it.

"This room is open to the public," she reminds him, "There is no need to apologize-- but I have not seen your friend, unless you are looking for Billy. I've been alone most of the afternoon."

"The young mage?" Brennan asks, then shakes his head. "No, although they are acquaintances. My companion answers to the name Dorian. Stands this tall, bit of an accent, very memorable personality. I'm pretty sure you'd be aware if he'd swept in to interrupt."

Dorian tends to make an impression wherever he goes.

He casts her a curious look, head tilted slightly to the side in curiosity. "Are you a mage as well?"

She nods, just once-- while she doesn't know the man he describes well, they've certainly crossed paths before. While he sounds familiar, she's also certain that she hasn't seen him anytime recently, which means that unfortunately, Brennan is out of luck-- at least as far as the magic study is concerned.

"You're right, very recognizable. I have not seen him, but I can tell him you are looking, if I do." There would certainly be no mistaking him for anyone else. "But no, I am not, although Billy seems to think I have the potential. We are-- family."

The details of which Billy himself doesn't realize Wanda now knows. Sooner or later, she'll have to come clean with that one.

"Are you?" Brennan looks intrigued now as he takes a step closer, moving to lean against the back of the chair opposite her, his arms resting against the high back. "He didn't mention he had family here. Siblings? Cousins?"

Of course he had to ask for clarification, a label she hadn't even confessed to Billy or Tommy that she was aware of yet, though it had been months since she'd learned. They, of course, knew already, and she had to wonder how difficult it had been for them to keep it from her all this time.

Maybe discussing it with Brennan would serve as a dry run for being honest with both of them later on.

"His brother is here as well," she begins, carefully watching Brennan's face to gauge his reaction. "I'm his mother."

Brennan blinks. Then blinks again because she... She was barely older than Billy, if even. "Were you drawn here from different times, my lady?" he asked curiously, his voice gentler. Because he knows of the years that stretch between Robyn and he, and how much had changed in his world since then.

"A different universe."

Whether her future would have her own version of Billy and Tommy in it remained to be seen-- but at the moment, the pair she had met here were the only family she had left, whether or not they were from the same universe. It did not make them any less what they were.

She offers Brennan a vague half-smile, going on to explain a moment later. "Their mother is-- another Wanda Maximoff. A different version of me. One I am not yet sure if I will grow to resemble."

He makes a face before coming and sinking down in the empty armchair across from her, threading his fingers in front of him as he studies her a moment.

"That must be incredibly complicated," he finally surprises, his tone a hint wry.

She nods once, solemn. 'Complicated' is putting it gently, and the subject is one she still hasn't quite decided how to breach, though she knows time is running short on that front. She can't pretend to be in the dark forever, not when the two of them are working so hard to keep something from her that she already knows.

"It is. Neither of them knows, yet-- that I know who I am to them. They've been trying to keep it from me. I cannot blame them. It's a lot to take in, and I-- did not make the best first impression. The idea of alternate worlds was foreign to me when I met them, while they have had experience with several."

"Yeah, Billy implied that when I've spoken to him in the past. It's a bit of a strange concept to me, too. Where I come from, we only have two realms - the real one, and the Fade, the world beyond. That a place like this can exist... Or places that are like the world I know and yet still different..." he trails off, shaking his head. "It is still a very difficult thing to wrap my head around."

"It does take some time," she tells him, sympathetic. As common-place as the idea seemed to be among people from worlds similar to her own, she'd had no choice but to get used to it. "It does become less difficult to understand as time goes on, I promise-- though I'm not certain the idea of another Wanda Maximoff ever will."

"I'm not sure that's a thing we were ever meant to know - or adjust to. I certainly would not have, had I never come here." He settles back in his chair and gives her a crooked smile. "Have you been here a while, then? Enough to adjust, I assume?"

She nods solemnly, though his good nature rubs off a bit-- enough for her to offer a crooked smile in return, however hesitant it might be.

"Several months now. Since the start of summer. In some ways, it has gone too quickly, but in others, it seems an eternity." Particularly when she gets to dwelling on what she's lost. "And you?"

"Since summer as well, although later into it, I believe. It's hard to tell, the seasons didn't match up here as they did back home. It was late fall before I was pulled here. I suppose now we are finally catching up."

He shifts in the armchair and nods in the direction of her book. "You've been studying. You said you had the potential to be a mage?"

"Do you like it?" she asks, honestly curious. "I know you must miss home-- most do, but some also seem to enjoy their time here. It depends on where they come from, I think."

Her, well-- she's still trying to decide which way she leans, personally. She nods, glancing down at the book in her lap for a brief moment.

"Billy seems to think so. I have been training with him, to see what might be possible. He seems to get a kick out of the fact that he is training me. It was the other way around where he comes from, I assume."

"Some days," he answers honestly, inclining his head as he considers her question, and his answer to it. "Things have been... difficult, in my world, for quite some time. The past year or two I've been so busy and traveled to so many places that the opportunity to be here, in one place, is a surprising opportunity to catch my breath." And spend some time with Dorian. "The events are a little worrisome, but they all seem to be temporary at best, so I'm trying to remain optimistic about our unplanned trip here. Making the best of it, as it were. Although I do have friends I miss from home."

"What about you?" he asks, glancing back over at her, curious.

"It is just a place." Not home, and it never would be home, though there was little left for her there. Here she had the opportunity to connect with her family, something she was grateful for, especially following the loss of her brother. She smiles faintly for a moment, shaking her head. "There is nothing left for me at home. Whether I am here or there-- it doesn't matter."

Neither place had Pietro, and anything she might have liked about either place paled in comparison to that.

"Nothing?" he asks gently, leaning forward to rest his arms against his knees as he studies her thoughtfully. "That's a pretty grim statement to make about somewhere most people here would do anything to get back to. Not one of the ones so eager to escape, I take it? Surely you must have something or someone back home that you miss?

She pauses for a moment, because of course there's someone she misses-- someone she feels incomplete without, lost, and yet going home would do nothing to soothe the ache within her, to fill the void he'd left behind.

She shakes her head, refuting.

"No-- not anymore. He is gone."

His expression immediately flickers to one of sympathy as he reaches out and lays a hand over hers for a moment, his gaze dark with understanding.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes softly, meeting her gaze. "I didn't mean to bring up an unpleasant topic."

She shakes her head once more, discouraging him-- it was not Brennan's responsibility to know things that were beyond his ken, or to carefully navigate around them. Besides, shying away from the loss-- it would have been a disservice to her brother and what he had sacrificed.

"Whether or not you had brought it up, it would have been on my mind regardless," she tells him, her smile faint and unquestionably grim. "The loss of your other half is one not easily forgotten. Twins are never meant to be apart."

"I have siblings that are twins. A few years older than me," he offers with an understanding smile, a lingering hint of sadness in his own gaze. "I think I understand, a little. I'm sorry for your loss. And for reminding you of it, even inadvertently."

"Thank you." Her response is brief, succinct, but the smile she offers him as thanks is genuine. "He died a hero. People say that like it makes things better-- but I do not think it does." She pauses, closing the book she'd previously held open on her lap. "You do not need to apologize, though the thought is-- appreciated. You did not know."

"Maybe it makes things better for him, if he's listening somewhere. Which he probably is, since I imagine not even death would change his desire to watch over his twin, if you were as close as you say," Brennan answers gently, leaning forward a little until his arms rest atop his knees to support him.

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