fandomhigh | Library, Sunday 07/08

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Library, Sunday 07/08

After taking care of returned books and going through the shelves to make certain all the books were in their proper place (the US Space Program books seemed a little melancholy and needed some cheering up), Raven settled at the front desk with the course catalog for Gotham U. She was at least going to try to narrow down her choices from the overwhelming number of classes the school was offering for the fall. Maybe she'd give Dinah a call to see if they might end up in any class together.

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"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."

"A path all my own..." Evan bit his lip, white teeth against tar-black flesh. And then he nodded a little. "I was raised to be a hero. That's the path I want to follow. That's who I want to be."

No matter what anybody said. He wanted to do right.

Raven smiled. "That is the path I wished to follow as well," she said. "I made mistakes. I thought to protect my friends from what I feared, and that was the wrong choice. Please, do not ever be afraid to ask for help if you need it. I for one will happily give you aid when I can."

"I don't want to get anybody hurt or anything, though," Evan noted, tilting his head thoughtfully. "I mean... I'm not really expecting trouble or anything, either. And I'm sure people around here can handle themselves just fine! That's not what I meant. I just mean... I don't know what I mean."

Sometimes, even Evan couldn't parse Evanese.

"And I pray it will never come to that," Raven said.

She shook her head with a light chuckle. "I am sorry if I sound so dire," she said. "My own experiences will hopefully not be yours." No matter how much she empathized with him.

"Just believe in yourself," she said. "That will take you far."

"I think believing in myself is going to be a lot easier now that I'm surrounded by other people who believe in me too," Evan decided with a little smile. "And... if something does happen that I can't handle, I'll ask for help. Promise."

"Good," Raven said. If he did turn out to have more of a connection to Apocalypse than just appearance, and Apocalypse started trying to influence him, she didn't want him to try to handle it on his own, as she had foolishly done.

"But hopefully you will have nothing more serious than gremlins to worry about here," she said.

Fat chance of that.

"I haven't stopped staring at my ankles since someone warned me about gremlins," Evan admitted, smiling sheepishly. "The Bamfs at my old school could drive a person crazy, but they never literally made anybody lose their mind."

[Bedtime! Sp?]

"Fortunately it is a temporary insanity," Raven said, glad for it. "And usually harmless, except to one's pride." Although that wasn't entirely harmless for her.

She gave Evan a curious look. "What is a bamf?"

[SP! \o/ Night!]

"They're little, blue," Evan demonstrated with his hands about how tall they were, something that was maybe knee-height if it stood on its tiptoes, "they have tails and they look sort of like people and they go, uh, bamf."

Evan probably could have found better ways to explain what they were.

"They run around my old school, they're pretty much everywhere, and they steal stuff and spray-paint walls and lock doors on people and just generally get into trouble all over the place. They're harmless, I think, but kind of a pain."

"They sound very much like gremlins without the bite," Raven said. "I do not remember seeing such things when I visited the school in the past -- it is still in New York, is it not? They did not relocate?"

The building hadn't been in the greatest shape last she'd seen it, but it certainly could have been rebuilt.

"It's the same building they used to use, I guess?" Evan shrugged a little. "I think the bamfs are new, though. I guess they've never really had problems with them before?"

There were a lot of things that were new to this particular incarnation of the school that hadn't been there before, though.

"Technically, that's what they are," he added. "Inter-dimensional gremlins. Vice-Principal McCoy left open some sort of dimensional gate for a while, and they slipped in when nobody was looking."

"And there is no way to lure them back through the gate?" Raven wondered. Bamf bait? "Or is that gate closed for good now?"

Would that it were that easy to get rid of the gremlins on the island. She'd be tempted to sweep them into the netherverse except they'd bite her and that would only end in tears.

"I don't think they want to go through the gate," Evan mused. "I'm sure Dr. McCoy could open it again any time he wanted, but the bamfs are everywhere, now. Rounding them up would be... um... not easy."

Not even for a kid who could stretch, no.

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]