Red Bolt | Ikram Boltagon (captainbuttchin) wrote in superbabies, @ 2013-06-20 20:21:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | ikram boltagon, medeavar boltagon |
LOG: medea & red bolt
WHO: Medeavar and Ikram Boltagon
WHEN: Last Friday
WHAT: The uncle and niece take a walk after the week of nightmares and open up about family, politics, and her fears and hopes for the future of their people. In which we see a glimpse of how they will someday be queen and queen's advisor.
Though Ikram and Medeavar were prepared by the time the toxins reigned literal terror on the people of the faculty suites, it didn’t keep the nightmares they faced from stabbing them in the heart. They’d comforted each other through the event, assuring each other that what they’d experienced wasn’t real, that they and their loved ones were alive. But it had all been through texts and phone calls. Now with the attack past them and people slowly recovering (some of them a further way off than others), Ikram made time for Medeavar, meeting her on the lawns. Despite the heat, he’d preferred it this way. Many people had migrated to the outdoors, unable to remain inside too long with the memories of their worst fears.
“My dear.” He murmured as she came into sight, placing each of his hands on her shoulders warmly and protectively. Despite the harrowing few days, she looked physically well. He was relieved. “How are you?”
Medeavar relaxed palpably when she saw her uncle, alive and well and very much his usual self. The phone calls and text messages had been a comfort, but it hadn’t been the same as seeing him in person. She’d been afraid to since her waking nightmare, afraid that she’d see signs of the despair she’d seen him driven to, under the influence of the attack.
“I am conflicted, Uncle,” she said quietly. “Dreadful as these last few days have been, they have... enlightened me about things I was unaware of, about myself. About the things I hold important above others. And I am uneasy about them.”
He nodded solemnly, one of his hands moving to rest on her back, walking them towards the shade. It cleared his own head to walk and think and hopefully it would provide her the same.
“Tell me.” He offered softly as they moved. “I will admit your nightmare came as a surprise to me. I had anticipated something more of the government or the welfare of your own parents.”
“My parents.” Medeavar smiled wryly, shaking her head. “Ahura and Nahrees are dear to me, but I am not unaware of their beliefs, or the differences between theirs and mine. And while I love them, I do not feel the same attachment that I believe the young people here often feel to their parents. I was made adult too soon, perhaps, for that. Anything I would fear from them is something I know will not come to be. I fear I use my powers to cheat on that score.”
She sighed, glancing around at the other people on the grounds, so many of them so much smaller and more fragile. This world still made little sense to her sometimes.
“This place... it changes people, that much is evident. I find myself thinking in ways I had not imagined before coming here. The change is organic; I do not suspect meddling. But it puzzles me, how such a short exposure could change my perceptions so utterly. It makes me question things I have been raised to believe as fact.”
Ikram could relate on that note. Though Ahura had been Medusalith’s pride and joy, it was a devotion from mother to son that was rather uncommon amongst the upper echelon. And Ikram had never known its equal. In many ways, Lifa’s brand of love had been a shock to him, how overcome he had been to fall in love with her, to know passion the way that the Inhumans seemed to almost shamefully tuck away or condone.
“It is a product of our environment, I am afraid.” He said. “We value blood, but politics does hold its own sway.”
He observed the others too. Though shorter than most Inhumans, he was built in strength and power that few humans could imagine. In all his years here, they still looked frail.
“Your journey of discovery on this world is not unlike mine.” He smiled softly, finding comfort in being able to share. “Though I had arrived knowing it would be foreign to me, I was taken aback by all the new feelings that came with these introductions, these initiations into the channels of this world. Attilan is stagnant, inert. Its people even more so. How could one truly know change in an environment such as that? Here people have shorter lives, more fragile existences. They thrive in change, in what new perspectives might await them.” An appreciative glance. “We are more like them than we know.”
Medeavar laughed softly. “A sentiment that many of our people would find shocking,” she pointed out. “We love to hold ourselves so far above the people of this world. My mother came here for a time and even she still prefers to think of herself as better. Our technology is more advanced, this is true, but our society? I cannot argue that point with conviction. We are cold. I have had hints, clues, that this may change in the future, but I will not tell myself enough to be certain, and I have questions yet. For all I know much of my own future, I do not know what will become of our people, and that frightens me.”
In all the time Ikram had spent away from Attilan, he had limited contact with any people, let alone family. Once in a while he spoke with Medusalith and Blackagar, but they gave no insight as to any changing tides or even unsettled currents in their home world, nor would he expect them to want to admit this. To know there was rumblings of change, a shift in the current of Attilan’s mindset, how small it might be, might frighten Medeavar, but it excited him.
“It will be what it is meant to be.” He finally said, maybe a touch sagely. “I think if you told yourself all, then you would be no better than the dictators of old, bent on one direction. Our people will continue on. They always will. Time has not aged them, mankind has not despaired them. But you - you can inspire them.”
Another thought passed his way as he recalled their text conversation. “You made mention of Ahura’s motives. In what way do you believe they are dishonorable?” Ikram could think of some, but he wanted to be sure.
Medeavar sighed, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear, and said frankly, “He does not trust this place, and he does not trust people who spend much time here instead of Attilan. He wanted me to observe you and your wife and Ruby for signs that you might be planning a coup. He falls into paranoia at times, believing that this world will taint ours. I fear Mother does not improve the situation.”
Ikram steepled his fingers, soured by this admittance but not at all astonished. It was the politics of the family, the side most prominent.
“He can sit in his towers and distrust until he dies, but he’ll have accomplished nothing and will feel no closer to happiness than I have known in one day on this planet.” He shook his head, gazing sidelong at his niece. How she’d been born of such a rigid, austere man and woman, he’d never know. He didn’t want her for an enemy. “I don’t want his kingdom. I want to see his kingdom become better.” His gaze softened at her, a look of confidence and pride. “And I truly think it will be.”
“It comes of his early life, I am sure,” Medeavar said, sighing. “Or perhaps there is no ready explanation. Regardless, he expects me to report to him, and I am no longer at all certain that I wish to do so. There is nothing going on here that ought to concern him.”
"Do you mind if I write him?" He asked. "I won't mention your reports, but I don't wish to potentially strain or complicate matters for you."
“You should, if you wish,” Medeavar assured him. “Perhaps hearing from you will ease his mind a little. He is not a bad person, Uncle, but you know how politics works in Attilan. He cannot help but see plots in every corner. Perhaps your words will help.”
He didn't know if that were entirely true, but she had been around Ahura far longer than he had. "My appreciation, thank you."
A large insect floated by. He flicked it, which effectively launched it into the thermosphere. "I do believe if I hadn't been in conversation with you on Thursday, I would have hallucinated your death as well as Ruby's and my wife's. The sight of an obliterated moon...it does put things in perspective."
“When I saw you die, I saw all hope for our people’s growth die,” Medeavar said quietly. “You represent the best of us, Uncle; the part of us that is willing to reach beyond our own experience and learn from other people. Attilan needs more opportunities like that, and when I am Queen, I intend to see that our people take those opportunities. Even before then. Grandfather and Grandmother respect my advice; I can make suggestions. Allowing some of our young people to attend school here would be a positive step, if both peoples would agree to it.”
"I am not the best of us," he demurred, "and I in many ways hardly better than the rest of our family. I represent the change; as the humans say, the other side of the coin. A clever saying, don't you think?" A smile and then the shake of his head. "You represent the best. You have been all along. I think allowing our youth to seek educational opportunities here would be marvelous."
“If it does not turn out the way mother’s jaunt here did,” Medeavar said, her tone darkening a little. Her mother had had so many opportunities to get to know Earth and its people, and yet there she was, cloistered away in Attilan, ignoring the possibilities. “I think perhaps we should start younger. Schooling them at an age appropriate to this facility, rather than sending them directly to universities. Children, even children on the cusp of becoming adults, are much more open-minded than adults, even those who are young. They have more forgiving hearts. I wish I had known you better as a child,” she added, almost to herself. “Perhaps then I would not feel so torn between duty to my family and duty to my people.”
“Once one has a thought in their mind, it is hard to alter their perception.” Ikram admitted, referring to Medeavar’s mother. “She might have been present physically, but she had already decided against accepting anything this world might have to offer.”
As she spoke, he nodded, agreeing with everything she said. He’d originally viewed young humans themselves as weak-minded and infantile, but he’d been proven wrong. He felt they could, in many ways, provide an influence to young Inhumans the likes of which they would have never known in their entire lives in Attilan. But when she added that - he wouldn’t say wistful, but there was longing to it - she had wished she had known him as a child, Ikram ceased walking.
He brought his hands to her shoulders as he had done many times, but this time there was a small tug, a pulling. He wrapped his arms around his niece and silently hugged her, a move that even in all of his time on Earth, was rare.
Contact of such an intimate form was rare on Attilan, and especially in public. Medeavar had been raised to think each action through before taking it, even tiny things like the touch of a hand or a smile. One’s public face was one’s best defence, and unthought actions could do untold damage.
Here, though, she felt free of all the trappings of being Attilan’s third in line to the throne, of being a political figure, of being her father’s daughter. Perhaps Ahura was right, and Earth was a place that would change Inhumans -- but for the first time, Medeavar thought that had potential to be a good thing.