Issue 1 Downtime

Posted: **Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:05 pm**

Nailah is lieing in bed next to Sam, unable to sleep as she has been prone to lately. She's taken to not waking Sam, partially out of pride and she does have company afterall. The ravens perching all over the room would be unsettling but after everything they've been through and understanding Sam's oddness rather well by now she just takes it as what it is. A sign of the red-head letting herself relax.

So she's lieing there, glancing back and forth from the ravens and the time on the alarm clock every once in a while.

Posted: **Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:07 pm**

There was the mental sound of a yawn. "Penny for your thoughts, Darling?"

Posted: **Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:11 pm**

"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you." she thinks before she notices that this doesn't feel like Sam's mind. "Who is this?" she sends, sitting up as her mental defense tightens a little.

Posted: **Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:13 pm**

"Sorry, it's the resident of Sam's mind who doesn't sleep. Since we both seemed bored and/or sleepless, I thought I'd be a bit more social. I can shut up if it's a problem."

Posted: **Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:16 pm**

"Rebecca?" she asks, looking at the sleeping Sam for a lack of anybody else to look at. "No, no it certainly isn't..."

Posted: **Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:22 pm**

"Just Becca, please. And good. Her subconscious isn't being social tonight, and sitting awake for eight or so hours is rather maddening. Isn't it."

Posted: **Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:26 pm**

"Gives you time to think." she says without qualifying that one way or the other. "Then again, you don't do much else all day, do you?"

Posted: **Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:28 pm**

"Oh yes. Time to reflect is definitely not in short supply, especially when I try not to be a constantly present voice watching everything and nagging Sam in her ear. I've probably got a rather long stay, I don't want to outstay my welcome this early."

Posted: **Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:39 pm**

"I'll admit, of all the bizarre things, this is the one that I find it hardest to wrap my head around. Take that as you will but I can't help but feel that yours is a harsh fate in it's own way."

Posted: **Mon Dec 26, 2011 8:06 pm**

"It's... not easy at times. But on the other hand, I may or may not have cheated death for a while."

"...Actually, now that I think about it, that doesn't exactly put me on any special ground in the company we keep, does it."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 4:01 am**

"I suppose the alternative would be worse but I hope you can see how it seems a little... odd from my perspective. Because it rather does look like she, well, collected your soul like without passing it on and regardless of what the alternative may be it does make me wonder what that might mean for me one day."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 4:10 am**

"Oh, that's where it gets a bit fuzzy. I mean... no offense to our favorite redheadded bombshell here, but I really doubt she has power over souls. I mean... is this all of me? Possibly, but I sincerely doubt it. More than likely, any of our friends who dies, god forbid, will find all the rest of me waiting in whatever afterlife X-Men who go out in a blaze of glory go to. And don't let her take all the credit. She made it sound quite a lot like she did everything or did it on purpose. I'd rather think that there was a very large part of me not wanting to die involved in it, and the rest was rather accidental."

"Besides, and please forgive the rather grim tone of the subject, but it's a bit unavoidable, this is only a delay of the inevitable. I'm dead, and I'll eventually get to where I'm going in the end. In the meantime, I get to stay here and keep her company. And have late-night insomniac chats with you, apparently."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 4:21 am**

"Power might be a rather strong word and I don't doubt this was just as much your doing as hers, don't get me wrong. But the way things have gone I find it hard to reconcile gods and magic without believing into a bit more than electrical firing in the brain. Especially when everything points at said red-headed bombshell being a goddess herself."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 4:27 am**

"Possibly. And by the by, it's been rather nice to see someone else finally call her magic-aversion nonsense for the self-fearing rubbish that it was. The point stands, though. I'm here now. I'm probably already in the hereafter, too. And eventually, I'll be completely there. The bottom line is... honestly, why stress over it? It is what it is. I'm here. It's a lot better existence than some people have, so there's no need to feel fussed over it."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 4:32 am**

"Stress? Hardly. No offense but I have worse things tugging on my brain and I don't believe you're suffering. And there are certainly worse minds to be stuck in than one as expansive as hers. But if you don't mind the question... You still haven't told her, have you?"

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 4:37 am**

"Told her wh- ohhhhh. Yes, darling, I did. Long ago, when I was still alive... but honestly, that never got farther than a schoolgirl infatuation. Maybe if I'd lived, maybe if I'd kept my mouth shut, but honestly, it didn't matter. I moved on, she moved on, and I was never good at settling down anyway. Would have been a trainwreck of godlike magnitude, I guarantee it."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 4:47 am**

"Don't worry, I'm not jealous. More... amused at how oblivious she used to be. Not that I have room to talk and I don't even have the excuse of having been raised catholic."

"Though... Victoria is proof that you settled down somewhat, no?"

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 4:51 am**

There was a pointed silence for a minute. "I've done a lot of people a lot of disservices over the years. I've hurt people, broken people, and ruined many, many lives, mostly as a byproduct of the life choices I made."

"Probably the only life I've hurt, possibly come close to ruining, that I'll ever regret, is my daughter's."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 4:57 am**

"And her father? Surely you don't carry all the blame..."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 5:02 am**

"Sadly, I'm the only parent to blame here."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 5:06 am**

There's the mental equivalent of a nod. Nailah might have come to a slightly wrong conclusion there but the result is the same. There had been no father around.

"Then why? Why take care of her so little that even Sam didn't know you had a child in the first place?"

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 5:10 am**

"Because I was a horrible mother? Because I had too many people that wanted to hurt me to ever keep her around me much? Because assassins make horrible role models?"

"I suppose it all gets wrapped up in the first part. I really was just a horrible mother."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 5:20 am**

"I can hardly judge one way or the other but it seems any rolemodel and mother is better than none. But that wouldn't be the only thing the majority of people might disagree with concerning my opinions so take that with a grain of salt."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 5:25 am**

"Well, actually being there to be a role model probably would have been something of an improvement," Becca answered. "She ended up... trying far too much to be like me. And it looks like she's been paying the price for it. If I'd have been around more, I might have been able to keep that from happening."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 5:28 am**

"Yet you still don't want her to know that you are here?"

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 5:33 am**

"I'm not. I'm dead. She's had to go through losing me once. It's better for her if that chapter of her life was finished. At the very least, she's grown up enough to find her own way into sanity."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 5:46 am**

There's a mental sigh. "It is your decision."

There's a pause before Nailah changes the topic. "I know Sam said you aren't looking out all the time, so to speak, but I do have to wonder... Outside the bed-room, how much privacy do we actually have?"

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 5:50 am**

"I tend to make myself scarce if things are boring, or if it seems like a fairly private moment. Or basically any situation when Sam doesn't seem likely to do something I'd judge to be silly. When I'm not up taking a look, I'm in her subconscious, so I've gotten a good idea of what subconscious parts waking up mean there's something I'd want to take a look at going on."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 5:58 am**

"Fair enough. As long as I don't have to feel like we are never alone."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 6:00 am**

"No, darling. Granted, if you two are arguing too long and I see her 'bullheaded' tendency waking up, or her 'Catholic sensibilities conflicting with reality' tendency, I do tend to stick my head up and tell her to get her head out of her arse. Those two tend to make her subconscious a rather irritating place to be."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 6:44 am**

"I can imagine. Though I'd hope it has gotten less lately. Her recent realization seems rather contrary to her catholic upbringing."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 6:45 am**

"Oh, don't worry, she always manages to find new and original things to be stubborn about."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 6:47 am**

"She better. I do not want this to change who she is afterall." Nailah chuckles.

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 6:52 am**

There was a mental chuckle. "Tell me about it. At least now she's not projecting all of her magic insecurities on you. THAT was rather maddening to watch."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 7:00 am**

"Maybe that's what it took to make her reconcile it with herself. Granted, had I encountered Mr. Hall's peculiarity earlier I may have been more hesitant towards it myself. It's not all sunshine and rainbows."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 7:04 am**

"Is anything, really?"

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 7:10 am**

"Hardly. And if there is it probably isn't worth having."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 8:03 am**

"Ah, glad we agree on that one."

"So... might I ask what has you staying up so late tonight?"

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 8:13 am**

"Sometimes feels a little too empty in the darkness. Like the endless room Harbinger kept me in."

Posted: **Tue Dec 27, 2011 8:15 am**

"And I take it that silly suggestions like 'turn on a light' aren't going to solve anything."

Issue 1 Downtime

I8DT - We Need To Talk

I8DT - We Need To Talk

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