Who: Irene Adler (Destiny) and Raven Darkholme (Mystique) What: An (not so) chance meeting. When: Saturday, June 26th Where: A cafe. Rating/Warnings: PG/PG-13 for some innuendo. Status: Complete.
Irene sat outside a cafe enjoying a slight breeze. Her folding rested in her lap. She took a sip of her latte and took a deep breath. The dream had been strange enough, but what had happened a few days later had been beyond strange. And it hadn’t been a dream. She wasn’t entirely sure what it had been, but the best way she could think of explaining it would be a vision. A vision that had actually come with what seemed like visual stimuli, even though Irene knew that was impossible.
It had been been just a flash. A blonde woman approaching a table outside of a cafe. It felt…real. Real in a different way than the dream had felt, though that had felt odd enough. She took another sip of her latte and wondered if there was something in the proverbial water.
Raven was watching her. She hadn't set out to stalk her or anything like that, it had been sort of an accident. She'd seen her, and then followed, staring from across the street. She'd even forgotten to shift. But that was definitely Irene, and it was as though she were looking through a window into the past.
Her feet betrayed her, and she approached the table.
Irene heard footsteps nearing her table and turned her face toward the sound. There was, of course, no guarantee that the person approaching would stop at here table, but it could certainly be interesting if they did.
It turned out to be interesting, because Raven stopped at the table. She licked her lips and waited a moment before speaking. She tried to remember the tone she’d used when they’d first met, in the dreams, but her mind was scrambled (how dream her would look with disdain…) “Mind if I take a seat?”
Irene tilted her head slightly. It was a pleasant voice. She nodded, smiling slightly. “Please, do.”
“Thank you.” Raven took a seat, resting her hands on the table and keeping very still. If there was one thing she knew, the less she moved the less she gave away - Irene was far more perceptive than her lack of sight would indicate.
Her new companion was someone who could be very still, felt the need to be still, or--perhaps--was being still to gauge Irene’s reactions. Interesting indeed. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked. “I’m sure a waiter could be summoned if you do.”
“Wine,” Raven said, without really thinking about it. Mostly she needed a drink and mostly it felt like it was a proper idea to ingest wine around a woman like Irene.
Irene smiled. She happened to hear footsteps again, and judging from the quickness the seemed to be heading toward her table, she took a gamble on it being a waiter. “The wine menu, please,” she said. “I might join you in a glass myself.”
“The white here is supposed to be pretty good.” Damn, she’d given something away. Raven winced, and pressed her fingers to her forehead. “So I’ve heard.”
“Oh, have you?” Irene smirked slightly and ordered a glass of white wine. “I take it you’ve been in the area a little while?”
“Several months, in fact.” Raven leaned back in the chair, her fingers resting on the table and then drumming there as she answered. Steady and slow, her fingers on the table.
“Ah!” Irene tilted her head slightly, taking in the soft drumming that had to be fingers on the table. She held her hand out in the direction of the drumming. “I’m Irene. Have you experienced that apparently widespread phenomenon of strange but realistic dreams?” She might as well ask, after all. And it was certainly a conversation starter.
“Well that’s a conversation starter.” Raven stopped her drumming, looking down at her fingernails as though she were inspecting them, even if Irene couldn’t exactly see that. “You could say my dreams have been an adventure and a half. Have you… had hyper realistic ones?”
“I have.” Irene tapped a finger on the table. “Only one, so far, but I expect I should expect more to follow.” She idly drew a figure-eight on the table with her fingertip as she considered whether or not to reveal the nature of the the other odd occurrence. She decided to hold onto that card for the moment. “I dreamed I was in Austria in the late 1800s. I was roughly the same age in the dream as I was when I lost my sight.” Sight. In the dream, she’d started “seeing” in a completely different way.
Raven’s eyes followed Irene’s fingers as they moved around the table, and it made her insides twist up in ways she wasn’t that comfortable with. Would Irene have premonitions? There were times that she’d felt as though she was always one step behind Irene.
“One of my first dreams was in an earlier time period,” she admitted.
“Really? Do you know if that’s common, or if most people seem to have more...modern-but-different dreams?” Irene continued to trace a finger on the table as she heard what was probably the waiter returning with their wine
“Unusual dreams are the norm. Some people seem to be really sci-fi.” Raven shrugged a shoulder as if she thought Irene could tell. She licked her lips, then tore her eyes from Irene’s fingers. “I don’t know anyone personally who’s dreamed of old timey places. But people have talked on the network about it. Swords and sorcery even.”
The waiter delivered their glasses of wine and went on to his next customers. Irene carefully found her glass and took a sip.”Mm. You were right--it is good.” She took another sip. “So swords and sorcery and science fiction are common in these dreams.” Perhaps the visions were… Irene frowned slightly as her mind went back to the other phenomenon she’d experienced. Which couldn’t be anything, really. Could it?
She took another sip of wine. “May I ask you what color your hair is?”
She lifted her hand to her hair, then stroked her fingers through it. Unlike her on and off again lover Emma, it was completely natural - even before the shape shifting. Though Emma's could be very soft, too. Raven dismissed the thought. "Blonde." A beat. "Natural." Her grin was wicked and it was a pity Irene couldn't see it. But it was in her voice.
A blonde woman approaching a cafe. Coincidence? Irene didn’t try to stop the chuckle that came when the woman added the last detail, with what sounded very much like a grin. She took another sip of her wine. “I’m not sure I caught your name. Though I suppose I could call you ‘Blondie,’ now.”
“Raven. I have the completely wrong hair color. I think my mother may have been a bit of a hippie.” There wasn’t enough wine for this. “But it’s not hard to change it. Sometimes I think I should every week.”
“Mmm. I think I was named after an aunt. My parents were definitely not hippies.” Irene took another sip of her wine. “Well, Raven. I have another question for you.” Irene smirked slightly. It could be interesting, after, so see what happened. It was just an odd...not-quite a dream, but it might make things interesting.
“Do you believe in destiny, Raven?”
She about choked on her wine, coughing and scrambling for a napkin to wipe her mouth. Christ. “I believe some things happen for a reason, but I also believe you can fight fate…” Or she’d used to believe that. It felt like, sometimes, that fighting fate was like pissing in the wind.
An interesting reaction. “I see. I’ve always liked to think that we make our own fate, but there are, indeed, many things outside of our control. We can act or react, or both.” She finished her wine and set the glass aside. She paused for a moment. Talking with Raven was interesting, if nothing else, and Irene found herself wanting to do so again in the future. “How would you react if I offered you my phone number?”
“Something tells me that texting you at 3am is out of the question,” Raven joked. How did text messages work with a blind woman,anyway? “I warn you, I can get really chatty.”
“Sometimes I like chatty.” Irene grinned and reached into her purse. She pulled out a card case and opened it up, feeling the sizes or the two different types of cards within. She took one of the narrower cards and closed the case. She held the card out to Raven. “I’ve found it saves time to have my personal number on a card, as well,” she said.
Despite herself, Raven blushed. She thought she'd have more control over her body, but that wasn't always the case. She smirked and took the card, making sure to brush her fingers against Irene's. Just long enough to be noticed, but short enough to make her want more. If she wanted more.
The touch was unexpected, but Irene found it a pleasant surprise. Raven seemed to have nice fingers. She smirked as a stray thought of wondering of just how nice they might be made her smirk. “Don’t be a stranger,” she said.
Irene’s smirk went right to her stomach, and Raven rubbed her fingers together, and inhaled sharply. “I’ll be around.” And she could be anyone.
“Good.” Irene leaned back in her chair, pleased with how the meeting had progressed. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”