don't wait for a knight in shinin' armor, your savior's reflected in the mirror

[perpend]

[That sure was a fucking thing. That execution was a fucking thing. Those secrets are a fucking thing.

Cabanela retreats to his room, but not for all that long. Everyone will get a note eventually, written in very neat handwriting

I do not plan on bowing down to threats and intimidation. If you did not act, it means you were, like me, aware of the risk, but decided against it. Your reasons are entirely your own.

Join me in the dining room if you agree enough is enough, and that you won't acquiesce to threats. I don't plan to let this stop me, and neither should you.

-C

In the dining room itself, Cabanela has set up coffee and tea for those who want it-- there's no food, because to be honest, he doesn't know how to cook. Two more candles have been lit-- he wasn't really sure what to do about the whole... parasite thing... so Fern's candle will have to make due.]

Comments

[zomgboom]

I read yours. [It was short. She's been sitting here for a while, having not left.] There's a lot of ways to, like, interpret it imho*? So I'm asking you.

[* Pronounced "em-hoe."]

[ninehundredlives]

...I put some flowers in her room.

[No, that sounds so innocent.]

I hid them there. They were from this...man, this admirer I had, and I didn't want my husband to see. It was silly, really, it's not like I was going to run away with him...

She had this rare form of pollen allergy. We didn't know - we couldn't have known. But I'm still the one who put them there.

[zomgboom]

One time I was taking care of this, like. He was a bad guy and he'd hurt a lot of my friends, but I . . . I let him go. And, like, they told me later it was because he'd tricked me, but he. Psylocke nearly died because I let him go.

[Tabby is unusually serious, almost sad as she says this.]

Anyway, I'm like. I'm trying to say I get it and I . . . [She gestures to the wall.] That's, like, not fair to you or your family. You can't, like, simplify issues like that where it's everybody's fault and nobody's fault? I dunno, I'm probably not smart enough to be trying to talk about this stuff.

[ninehundredlives]

.....no. No, that was good. I...

[She gets what she's saying. She appreciates it.]

...I'm glad your friend made it.

[zomgboom]

I am too. I mean, like, sometimes people die on my watch or whatever while I'm trying to save them but like. It's different when it's someone you know and stuff.

[Even if Psylocke is occasionally??? Against the X-Men???? Because reasons or whatever???]

[ninehundredlives]

Yeah. It's good of you to keep on trying to save people, though? It was like that, a little, when I worked in the hospital...but I don't know if I could deal with it anymore.

[She's dealing with all the death here. But Fern was the first one to die that she was actually friends with. And even so, she wasn't really responsible for saving any of them, beyond what anyone else might be.]

[zomgboom]

I've heard some people, like, get really fed up or whatever with the whole superhero gig. I mean, I kinda did too after . . . the whole thing with Psylocke. [It was not a great time in her life, overall.] But, like, I'm not good at things besides making stuff explode, so. I think I stopped, like, getting close to people or whatever? To keep myself from, like, caring about them and that's not the right way to do it either but sometimes if you just keep going? You don't have to think about what you're doing wrong.

[It is entirely possible that Tabitha Smith has made a plethora of mistakes she prefers not to examine too deeply in favor of doing her job.]

[ninehundredlives]

There's not really any good way to go through without getting hurt. Even trying not to is probably just going to hurt in a different way. I guess...you just have to decide what it is that you really want. To never feel like that again, or to have people you care about.

[zomgboom]

That's true. Like, being here or whatever - if I don't care about these people it's one kind of bad. If I, like, make friends with all of them and stuff . . . it's still bad, but in a totally different way.

. . . That's kind of why I've been asking everybody about their secret or whatever. It's not just 'cause I can't read good, it's 'cause I kinda want to get to know everyone better or whatever.

[ninehundredlives]

I see.

[.........Susan takes a seat, folding her hands on the table.]

I didn't really have any friends before coming here, you know? It seems like it should be easy to just...not care about anyone.

[zomgboom]

It should be, but humans are social and stuff so like. They want to form connections and be loved or whatever? That's something humans and mutants share in their DNA, I guess. Whatever makes us want to form communities so we don't feel so alone.

[ninehundredlives]

Yeah. I guess I'd sort of forgotten what that felt like.