fandomhigh | Library, Sunday 07/08

"You are surely going to encounter each other sooner or later," Raven said. It was a small island, after all. "But it might be best if it were later." Azar, she hated this.

"I am sorry," she said softly. "I wish I could tell you no one will ever have a problem accepting you as you are here. For the most part it is true. Jono is a good person -- but he has been through some very difficult experiences. It is not your fault. I have only known you for a short time, but I can sense you have a good heart, and I wish I did not have to tell you anything so troublesome."

How was it that one handful of sentences bunched together could simultaneously pick Evan up, and make him feel like never leaving the dormitory grounds again?

The good heart bit... that was nice to hear, at least.

"I don't want to cause anybody any problems," he murmured, trying not to look as stung as he felt on the inside. "I wouldn't want to seek him out or anything, if it would hurt him or anything. I... Guess maybe I'd ask him some questions, if I could. Or even just... feel better, knowing that a face doesn't mean that you're doomed to become something you're not... But I can sit tight. That's okay."

Raven felt awful. Maybe honesty wasn't the best policy. "Perhaps in time," she said, still hopeful of that.

She sent a gentle pulse of comfort toward Evan. "I know your face does not mean you are doomed. I struggled with that myself. My father is a demon, and my fate was to destroy my world. It almost did happen, but with the aid of the friends I made here, it did not. It is not always easy, but I have rejected my so-called destiny."

Evan sighed a little, relaxing slightly and nodding as he listened to Raven. And then, a moment more, and he was glancing up at her curiously.

"Is that... you, doing that?"

The inexplicable feel-better feelings that he seemed to only get around her when they were talking about things that he got down on himself about.

"Is what..." Raven said, puzzled for a moment before she realized what he meant.

"Oh, yes, that is one of my gifts," she said. "It is like an empathic hug. I dislike it when my friends feel badly, and I want them to feel better."

An empathic hug? Evan paused to think on that, and then decided that he kind of liked it.

"I wonder if I can learn how to do something like that," he mused. "Though I'm just fine with physical hugs, too."

"I cannot say for certain," Raven said. "It is a gift I was born with due to my heritage, but it could be possible that you possess the capacity to learn. Are you sensitive psychically?"

She smiled again. "And real hugs are something I enjoy giving as well."

"I am," Evan confirmed, comfortable enough with his new friend that he felt okay saying so. She didn't sense anything wicked from him, and, in turn, he trusted her not to run around making a big deal out of something he came by naturally. Especially since he wasn't going to, like, invade people's brains to re-write them over or something manic like that. "I don't really do much with it, though."

"If you would like I could try to see if you might be empathic, though I am not a skilled teacher," Raven said. "My favorite teacher, Professor Skywalker, has aided me a great deal in learning how to hone and control my abilities, and he could likely help you as well." Consider this your introduction to the Anakin Skywalker Fan Club, Evan. Your membership materials will be arriving shortly.

She hesitated a moment, then said, "One of the most powerful telepaths I know is on the island. Emma Frost -- she is a mutant, too. She graduated but returned here for the summer I think. She is very...brusque, however. But should you wish to pursue that path, she might be able to teach you as well."

Evan nodded a little while Raven spoke, absorbing the names as best as he could. Professor Skywalker, check. Emma-- Huh.

"She's here, too?" Alternate timelines were the weirdest thing ever. Officially. "We, uh, have one back home. An Emma Frost. I've never really met her, though. Is she our age too?"

She'd suspected he might recognize her name since Emma had been a teacher of mutants for a time in Jono's world, and thus connected to the X-Men.

"Yes, she graduated last year, so she is a little bit older than me." Or not, counting her time in limbo. "Though I have met her in another world where she was several years older, and a teacher. I do not know her well, but she is quite close to Karla."

"She does some teaching where I'm from, but not in the Jean Grey School or anything," Evan mused. "Even if I don't ask her to teach me, maybe I should introduce myself anyhow?"

He trusted Karla's judgement, too. Evan was... very trusting.

This could only end in tears.

Which Raven was just a little bit worried about. "As I said, she can be very blunt and often times harsh," she warned. "It is just her way."

"Well... do you think she'd recognize my face as... as not my face?"

That was apparently the only sticking point in the world, okay? The only one.

"She may," Raven had to admit. "But with her gifts she should be able to swiftly discern that you are not who she may think you are at first glance. I cannot say for certain what her reaction may be, I am afraid. I do not know what her experiences have been."

Evan nodded a tiny bit. Well, that didn't really allay his worries, but it was a starting point, at least.

"I'll probably have to be most careful meeting other mutants," he said, slowly, with a sort of dawning realization. "Apoc... He... It was the X-Men that were his enemy, mostly. I've recognized a few other names from home, too, but they were mostly Avengers."

Steve Rogers was teaching decision-making!! Steve Rogers.

"I... I wish I knew more about him. And that I'd never heard of him at all. And I can't really have both, I know that. It's just frustrating."

"I can tell you what I know about him," Raven offered. "But I fear it is not much. It may just be things you already know. But I understand how you feel. When I learned who my father was, I wanted to know more about him, yet I wished I had been left in my innocence as well."

Evan gave a little nod, chewing on his lip in thoughtful silence. Apocalypse wasn't his father, of course. His Pa and Ma were both back in Kansas, and they'd been good people. But there was an undeniable resemblance there, and any little bit, if he could learn it, might help him make sense of the jumble that the world had become in the last few months of his life.

When other kids hit their teens, they just had to worry about their voice cracking, and weird body hair. Sheesh.

"I think... if you know anything about him at all, I'd like to know," he decided. "I want to know what it is that everyone is so afraid I'm going to become."

A genocidal maniac. Yes. He'd gathered that much.

Raven thought back to what Jono had told her long ago. "He is a mutant who is thousands of years old," she said softly. "He proclaims himself to be a god, and there is a cult that worshiped him, Akkaba they are called. He has enslaved or destroyed many civilizations in the past."

"Akkaba," Evan echoed, frowning. If he was supposed to be related to this Apocalypse somehow, he'd know that word, wouldn't he? But he didn't. None of it made sense. "I couldn't possibly do any of that. Whatever he did, that's not me!"

And if he kept saying that, it had to be true!

Raven reached for Evan's hand. "No, Evan, it is not you," she said. "Whatever he or his followers did is not your doing." And it wasn't Jono's, either.

"Do you by chance have a tattoo?" she asked. "On your chest or elsewhere? A red marking?"

"A... a tattoo?" Evan blinked at Raven, letting her take his hand. "No. I don't have anything like that. The only marks I have are... are just those lines running up from my mouth. My parents never would have let me get a tattoo."

She gave his hand a gentle reassuring squeeze. "I know that Akkaba marks their members in such a way," she said. "Willingly or not. It could have meant that you were related to someone who once served Apocalypse. But I have been told that there are very few of Akkaba left."

She knew Jono had thought he was the last, but obviously there was more than just him left.

"So... maybe it's just a really weird coincidence?"

Be a little more hopeful about that one, little Sabah Nur. Go on.

"I wish I could say for certain and allay your fears," Raven said, her heart breaking a little at the hope in his voice. "But I can say for certain that even if you bear his blood or mark, no matter what anyone else tells you, no matter what you fear, your fate will be yours to make. It may not be an easy path, but it will be yours."

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]

Re: Talk to Raven [Library 07/08]