Esmeralda dances to the rhythm of the tambourine (changewillcome) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-07-05 08:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, esmeralda, kitty pryde (shadowcat) |
Who: Esmeralda and Kitty performing the roles of Xavier and Magneto
What: A conflict of ideas/methods
When: 5 July 2017
Where: Outside the Court of Miracles
Warnings: Hate fueled vandalism
Status: Log | Complete
Vandalism was nothing new for Esmeralda and the Kumpania who lived at the Court of Miracles. However, it was always jarring to see it after it had happened. Especially as the damage done following 4th of July celebrations seemed to be far more than what was normal. No, even as they had been in one place for a year, even as they set down roots, they were always going to be outsiders and there would always be hatred thrown their way.
Looking at the damage, Esmeralda let out a sigh. Could there be a country kinder to our race? Questions from dreams set hundreds of years in the past forever remaining prescient.
Right. Seeing Clopin take in the damage then find the others to delegate clean up, Esmeralda grabbed a broom and started to sweep up the broken glass. There was a lot that needed to be done. Texting Peter to let him know and see if he could bring supplies. Figuring out the plan for the night when they reopened, how to make it work for them. Inventory, though those things were more Clopin’s area of expertise.
For now, it was just doing initial cleaning up, one step at a time.
There were times when Kitty questioned Xavier's way to handle some situations. The more that happened in the waking world, the more that hatred and fear took hold, the less and less she became willing to compromise.
Swastikas on her car, a neighbor's window broken. And now her friend's home and business trashed.
"Are you okay? Was anyone hurt?" It made her angry. So much made Kitty angry lately. If someone was hurt, well she was going to flip a biscuit.
She was probably going to flip a biscuit anyway.
Blinking and looking up as she heard Kitty’s voice as she hadn’t been expecting to see her, Esmeralda shrugged.
“Yeah. I’m fine. No one was hurt.”
Which was lucky in its own right, and really the most important thing. Things broken? Upsetting but replaceable. But people being harmed? Especially as any of them could have come up from the rooms and been caught unaware. Thank goodness for soundproofing she supposed.
"Good. That's good." Kitty surveyed the damage, wondering if there was more than just the damage. If there'd been any messages or symbols painted. "Any idea who did this?"
She knew better than to ask about the police, so instead grabbed a broom to help. "Bullies need a punch in the nose."
“Yes. Very good. But no, no idea on who did it.” From what Esmeralda had seen, there was nothing to determine a who had done the damage. Some idiots hopped up on overzealous nationalism thanks to the celebration of their independence. Still, the police were the last people to get involved. There was a healthy distrust of outsiders amongst the Court, let alone anyone dealing with the law or those who would look too closely.
“Mm.”
Not that Esmeralda wouldn’t gladly pull her dagger on someone if she needed to in self defence or defence of her own, but she wasn’t about to seek out trouble either. Then again, trouble had a way of finding her so why put forth that effort? But if she could avoid violence, she would prefer it. It never solved things in the long run.
"We should find out. If it happens once it'll happen again. People like this," Kitty gestured with the brush of the broom towards some debris. "If they think they can get away with it, they'll come back, again and again. But if they learn there's consequences to their actions..."
There was a little bit of a rebellious streak in Kitty's words. In one of her dreams she'd led a rebellion. And people had attacked her friend and her friend's people. “They’ll stop.”
There was something in the way Kitty was talking, her voice…. Esmeralda wasn’t blind and despite her optimism and belief in the best of people, she could still read them. She had to. And what she was seeing and hearing? It put her on edge.
“Consequences… and what do you plan to do if you find these people? How do you plan to stop all the others like them?”
Pausing in her own sweeping, Esmeralda just looked at Kitty. Watching.
“I don’t know. Yell at them to start.” Kitty shook her head. “Some things you can’t let slide. If you do, they’ll be back, and they’ll be emboldened. Look at what’s happening in this country, or in Europe. These bigots only respond to one thing, and reasoned discourse isn’t it! They want us to be afraid, they want us to go away, or to die. Even in my dreams they’re starting to deport mutants. It’s the same everywhere and … ”
She shrugged. There was an air of defeat in her eyes, as though she felt like there were rapidly dwindling options. “There’s no easy answer.”
Esmeralda remained completely still as Kitty spoke, even Djali who was wandering the main Court seemed to be still as if following her. Then again, the goat always had been smart and in tune with her.
“To start.” To start meant more would come. To start meant violence followed because some people responded to yelling, most did not and instead got more angry and more likely to lash out. She and the Kumpania had all been subject to that. “You think I don’t see what is happening here, what is happening in Europe as if we did not leave France, as if we did not see our homes and camps closed and burned.”
Shaking her head, Esmeralda felt the familiar indignation but also she could hear what wasn’t being said. And that? That was dangerous. Far more dangerous.
“Say it. They only respond to violence and you think that is what we need to do.”
Kitty frowned, leaning on the broom, her brows furrowing. "I don't...What's left? When they won't listen, when they won't talk, when violence and hatred is all they understand? What's left?"
Her voice cracked a little, as though it was only now starting to really dawn on her how far her viewpoint had gotten. "We die, we run, we die some more, we hide, we die. What's left when there's nowhere left to run? We have gay people in camps in Chechnya and how close are we to another Kristallnacht?"
Scott was right. Magneto was right. Maybe she still objected to some of their methods. Bombing innocents was something she'd never condone. But hitting a Nazi? There was nothing wrong with that. "Hit them when they hit us. Hit them first when they raise their fists. Shout them down, make them bloody, make them realize we won't roll over. I've seen this before, Esmeralda. In my dreams. I've seen where this goes again and again and again. It doesn't matter if we're Gay or Jewish or Romani or Mutants. It's always the same."
She stopped, breathing rapidly, her eyes watering.
No one would deny that there were no easy answers. Just because she didn’t have a formal education didn’t mean that she didn’t now history. It didn’t mean that she was blind because she saw it all, heard things. But just because there were no easy answers that didn’t mean that Esmeralda was going to forego who she was and for what? More violence? Stronger and more deadly reprisals?
“Not by finding them hours later. They come at me or mine, we fight, we always have. But we do not look for more trouble because that invites more attacks.”
But there was no denying that Esmeralda was also getting scared by Kitty’s words. Just as she had these conversations with Grantaire about the call for revolution and how those who were most vulnerable were always the ones who suffered the most in the face of revolution, so too did she see how this played out. Fight back, give them a rallying cry for the horror of those who were different. The violent rhetoric had continued to pick up, the fear, the violence. Waiting for a spark.
“There are no easy answers in life. We live. We get by. But that? That is not the way. We have survived worse than this.” Far worse. “We have seen it before, we have lived it before and never have we said that we would do what you are suggesting.”
In Kitty's eyes, the spark was already lit and it was either to let them come and do nothing, or do something and maybe stop it before it goes too far.
Kitty's throat bobbed. She respected Esmeralda. Still loved her, just a little bit. Her opinion meant a lot to her. She folded her arms, feeling herself shaking. "I'm just so tired of it. They say, speak softly but carry a big stick. Maybe it's time for the stick."
Esmeralda wasn't the only one who couldn't forgo who they were. "Some of us fight so others don't have to. It's always been that way too."
It wouldn’t be the first time that Esmeralda lost friends, she was surprisingly good at it. But in the end, wasn’t that always the way of it. Why had she thought this would be any different? Because right now? Right now she and Kitty were on such diametrically opposing sides of the same coin that there was no middle ground.
“And that is not something you can decide for us. If you fight, it is not for us. Because people say that but in the end, those they claim to fight for are the ones who suffer. I’ve seen that over and over as well. You may think this is the only way, but it is not a way which I can or will follow.”
She managed not to laugh in bitterness, but it wasn’t any easier on her. It hurt, but she was going to do what she had to in order to protect those at the Court.
“We are all tired. But we continue on. If you want to use the stick then that is on you.”
"I'm one of the ones suffering too! My kids are scared of being deported even though they're citizens, I wake up every morning being afraid of what's going on in the news or of finding another swastika on my car. I go to bed afraid of what I'll dream because the only difference there is super powers."
Kitty held her hand out to Esmeralda. "I'm not asking you to join me. I'm not even asking you to fight. I'm just trying to tell you we're on the same side."
There was an irony there. In another world, a man in red had once made the same gesture to a man in a wheelchair.
Esmeralda’s jaw tightened.“And I never said you weren’t. I see and hear all the fear and suffering here.” The Court acted as a temporary safe haven for those who knew to look. For those in need of papers, or anything else, things that were never spoken aloud but just understood. “But this? This is not something I or any of us here support. Not this way”
She may be the youngest of the Kumpania, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t speak for them either. They had been together a long time, which meant that she knew their feelings on the matter. Knew how they got by, and knew it was necessary for those who sought help from the Court.
“I will always fight for justice and what I believe is right, to protect those who need it. But this….” Shaking her head, Esmeralda let out a slow breath. “This is sort of plan? It is too far.”
Kitty's hand slowly fell to her side, and she felt as though Esmeralda might as well have just slapped it away. Her words had the same effect, and Kitty's eyes stung. While she'd take a bullet for these people, she wasn't asking Esmeralda to pick up a weapon. She just didn't want Esmeralda hating her.
Everyone had the right to self-determination, to take care of their own or to make the choice best for them. But for some people there was no choice. Sometimes it was fight or die. "I've stood in the ashes of millions. I refuse to stand in yours."
It took a lot to make Esmeralda hate someone, and even if they were on different paths in this conversation, it wasn’t enough to make her hate Kitty. But she had to do what was best for her people, best for those who sought them out for help. Painting targets on them or standing aside and not voicing her displeasure with it? That was a betrayal to them. Even Djali, who usually at this point would have wandered off to eat whatever on was on the floor had come between the two, looking between the two as if sensing the tension and prepared to defend Esmeralda if it seemed necessary, not that it was.
“And you won’t.” Because they knew how to get by no matter what was thrown at them. No matter how much hatred or violence. They always came back. But so did hate and violence and thus this sort of action felt like the painting of a target.
"Yeah." Kitty set the broom against the wall, suddenly feeling like the air was too tense and awkward for her to stay right now. She wanted to agree with Esmeralda. But she couldn't right now. She was too heated, too fresh from dreams where just getting by in the face of hate wasn't enough.
Where straight upchokingthreatening a bitch hadn't even been enough to stop it. But she wouldn't stand in Esmeralda's ashes even if she had to go all dark knight or Daredevil to ensure it. Maybe it was time for the cat vigilante to return, only with less of a focus on crime specifically.
Tearing her eyes from Esmeralda, Kitty walked away and wondered if this was what Erik had felt when he'd fallen out with Xavier, or if this was what Scott had felt when he'd looked at her and all the others that had stood against him. It felt a lot like heartbreak.
Esmeralda remained still, watching as Kitty left. She didn’t know what to feel. She didn’t have many friends, especially outsiders. She was used to losing friends and people be it from the constant moving or whatever. But it didn’t make it any easier and she had no idea what was to come next.
Only after Kitty left did Esmeralda feel herself falter even slightly as she blinked back her tears as Djali headbutted her leg gently. Right. She needed to text Peter about supplies. There was still a lot of work to get done.