victorshade (victorshade) wrote in newalliance, @ 2016-03-30 00:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | [event] retro, vision |
Who: Vision and NPC 16-year-old Eira
When: 2028 (Future-Retro narrative)
Where: Xavier's school, New York
What: A dad visiting his daughter, and trying to find some understanding.
Rating: Some cursing
After a brief talk with the Professor, Vision searched the grounds for his daughter. He float up through the ceiling, hovering over the school and searching through the few students braving the cold.
Eira wasn't too hard to spot. Vision found her sitting at one of the outside picnic tables with a thermos of what was likely coffee. She was dressed in a skirt with black and gray striped leggings and black faux fur boots. She had a leather jacket on, but it was opened to her black T. The 30 degrees simply wasn't bothering her. She didn't look up when Vision hovered down to the ground, then lightly took a seat across from her. Like her, the cold didn't bother him. The sun was shining, and that was really all that mattered to Vision.
The moment of silence was awkward, though neither fidgeted. Eira took a drink of her coffee, eye-liner heavy eyes watching the bare tree line. Her hair was boyishly short, almost feathery in the chilly breeze. Dark hair, made even darker by the black no. 1 dye. Vision looked to the fingerless black gloves that laced criss crossed on her wrists before disappearing under her coat sleeves. He hadn't seen them before. She might have gotten them with her allowance.
"I brought you some things. More eyeliner and other requested items." When Eira didn't answer, he continued. "I heard what happened further from the Professor." There was a slight hesitation in Eira's setting the cup down. "I'm not angry," he said honestly. "I just want to be sure you're all right."
She nodded, but despite the agreeable motion, said, "Yeah, I'm pretty not okay."
"I'm sorry you're not."
"Not your fault. I'm the stupid one that drank," she grumbled. She still wasn't looking at him, staring resolutely toward the trees instead.
"It's not a note of apology due to fault. It's an indication of remorse for your lack of happiness."
"You and your damn inconvenient literacy." She shook her head. "Isn't a reason for you to be remorseful, Pop." She was quiet for a moment, then shrugged. "If it helps, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to try drugs at this point."
"A small comfort, but very overshadowed by recent events."
Eira glanced at him, taking him in. He was still vivid colors, skin a deep red, head and his hearing sensors plated with dark green. His eyes no longer glowed. They were now round mechanical irises that continued to move ever so subtly as they focused on her. She remembered she had a fit as a kid when he'd been destroyed and remade without the glowing 'night lights'. They did serve their purpose, though. He still couldn't pass as human, but he looked more human, less intimidating than the glowing peepers ever did.
Plus his face was different, more human, more capable of sympathetic looks than what she recalled from her youngest years. He'd looked so much sterner then. Now she could see the concern there, the patient waiting.
He tried, at least. She could give him that much credit. So finally she took a deeper breath. "I saw how every single one of those kids at that party will die. Mostly. Some I saw the several ways they can die. Wasn't much better." Her tone was bitter as she took another sip of the tepid dredges.
What was he to say to that? He looked to his daughter, sympathetic, but having no empty words of comfort. It wasn't as though he thought he could protect his child from everything, but it didn't make it easier when he was powerless to stop her from hurting.
The older Eira had gotten, the more she experienced the foresight. Except her precognition didn't define one definite future. It often defined several confusing possibilities to her. It came in spats, usually when there was some significant branching moment, and she often had to stand aside and let people make their decisions. It was worse with people she was around constantly. No one in her family asked what she saw, though. They all knew better after a few incidences. Fate was fickle, and fate liked to be unspoken and just act. Now and then Eira would do something strange, and she would just give them frustrated, challenging looks and they just had to trust she knew what she was doing. Even when she admitted openly she didn't. She was just hoping she did.
She'd done better at Xavier's after she'd been indefinitely expelled from the public school and then the two private schools. Then her friend Phobos had died, someone else who had the gift but had known his own fate (Eira could not see hers). And now she was depressed again. Vision supposed that's why she had drank. It definitely hadn't done her any favors. And he felt helpless. He and Eira had always had an awkward relationship, misunderstanding each other so often, and having raised voices at each other more than once. Vision had dealt with her running away, shoplifting, and giving another child frost bite once. But he was always her most adamant defender from others too when she messed up. He supposed that's why she tolerated him.
So he was here now, even though she didn't seem to want him here, and even though he had so many other pressing things...
"How's the trial going?" Eira asked.
Vision looked up from the table he'd not realized he'd been staring at, so lost in thought as he was (that was a feat, for him). "Not well."
"You need to keep at that," Eira uttered. She held the container to her lips, staring over it at the horizon. "I mean it. Don't let up on that for a moment. Don't falter. Don't let them try to tell you you're not an entity and that they can just destroy other entities like you without any sanctity of life. You need to get the supreme court to re-evaluate what counts as a living creature."
"Eira, I'm not going to win this-."
Eira slammed her cup down, glaring. "It's for the next one! You half-ass this fucking case, the next one is lost, and the next one can't be lost, got it?" She pulled the cup back to her lips, realized it was empty, muttered another curse darkly and grumpily set it down.
"Tone, Eira."
"To hell with my tone. You don't get it."
"No. No, I don't, but does that constitute you lashing out at me for it? The trial isn't fun as it is."
"Yeah, because it's a riot for me to watch the news tear you apart for your lack of humanity, for the Virus, for your tantrum when they murdered nearly an entire cybernetic society, watching Mom trying to keep control while you're on the stand quoting cases and definitions at lawyers who are trying to slate you for shut down, and if that happens, Mom will-."
Vision held a hand up. "Enough," he said quietly.
Eira just stared away again, her brow pinched. "Just don't give up. That's all."
"Mentally and physically I have plenty of endurance."
"Emotionally?"
"Emotionally I will do my best."
"Kay..." Whatever spark had spurned Eira, though, it was gone. Her voice was empty once more.
"Eira. I promise."
Eira's blue eyes shift to him once more. Then she gave a humorless smile. "That's one thing I always appreciated about you, you know. You have never lied to me. DIdn't say things at times, sure. But even when I didn't like hearing things. Even when I didn't think you gave two shits. You never lied."
"...No. I don't lie to you."
"I can't say the same back."
"I'm aware. It's common for children to do so to their parents. Most people lie as part of social graces."
"Yeah, I know. I'm the daughter of a God of Stories. Two weird tangled chaotic stories where I exist in only one universe, some weird point where two major possibilities meet. That makes me just an odd PlotTwist in the scheme of things." She scraped her finger up and down the tabletop. "If it was needed, would you lie on the stand?"
"... I don't know."
Eira sighed, unraveling her legs and standing from the table. She puzzled over him for a moment, then snatched up her thermos. "Consider giving it a shot, Papa."
"Do you need-?"
"Go hooome. The cats will miss you."
I wish I understood you better. "Very well... If you need to talk..."
But Eira was waving over her shoulder as she head back up toward the school. Vision stayed where he was until she disappeared inside before floating up from the table and flying toward home. He still had court to attend in the morning.