(no subject)
Maybe if I remind her that I used a fish as a messenger, she'll stop trusting my opinion. Stupid, stupid.
A box with a note outside Faust's door:
"The fish brought this back for you. Well. Not this. But I made one here to match the one in Rus. Come get the real one in Rus, and I suspect you can us it to call her."
Inside is some knotted string, like from a net, with various fish bones caught in the knots. The length suggests a necklace.
Maybe it is a strange time for this. But Illyana's here with one of her peasant blouses on over her jeans, knife at the small of her back, and hair loose. She also has a stopwatch, liberated from some set of training equipment. She hesitates at Faust's door, then knocks.
"Just a...second?" There is a short pause before Faust manages to make it to the door, when she does her bare arms are being wiped down with an oil stained towel. The jeans she wears bare the same marks of ill treatment, as does her t-shirt. The scarf that hastily has been slung around her neck is lopsided and marked with rather telling fingerprints. "Uh. Hello." She does an awkward two-step, angling to let Illyana into her cluttered front hall. The walls have been covered with white boards, scribbled with calculations and a pair of galoshes sit overturned on the floor.
Illyana ...blinks. Oil? Calculations on the walls? ...galoshes? Illyana comes inside and stands awkwardly with her stopwatch. She's met Faust enough times now that she doesn't try to stare at the scarf. Much. Openly. "I'm interrupting."
Subtle. Faust raises her brows slightly, notching the door shut behind Illyana. "Potentially, but it wasn't anything explosive and now I am clean." She raises a hand in demonstration, then frowns at it and scrubs away a spot of oil that she missed. "What's up, Agent Rasputin?"
"What was it?" Illyana lifts her stopwatch. "I was going to--well, it's silly, that's why I'm doing it on the weekend, but I wanted to show you I can be more efficient, yes?"
That pulls Faust to a standstill for a more, glancing from Illyana's face to the stopwatch in her hand. "More efficient--Oh. Than toast?"
"Well, more efficient than going across the room to get something. Like toast. Yes." A tentative smile flickers. "Though we could use a piece of toast if you want."
"No, it's late for toast. I mean -- I'd be interested to see that," Faust says, perking up slightly as she takes another wide-eyed glance at Illyana's stopwatch. "Yes."
Illyana holds up the watch. "We can time how long it takes us to somewhere on base my way, and then we can come back normally, yes? To compare." She looks vaguely over her shoulder. "Where would you like to go?"
"I suppose somewhere walkable to return? Reservoir?" Faust suggests, rubbing at her arms with the towel. "That seems like it would be far enough away to...count."
"I have a where there I use often," Illyana says. "And it's far enough to make things clearly faster." She bounces on her toes in anticipation, then makes herself pause. "Did you want to--change, or wash or anything? I know I showed up unexpectedly."
"Do I need to like do anything to make the trip?" Faust looks down at herself, giving her hands another rough scrub before tossing the towel aside. Adjusting her scarf so it is even, she raises her brows at Illyana. This is presentable enough right? Oil splatters and a scarf.
"It might be chilly, but it hasn't been winter lately," Illyana says, with consideration. She holds out a hand, a little hesitant like she's expecting the feel of oil. "You'll be fine."
"I'm from Michigan," Faust offers a little wryly. She eyes the extended hand for a moment. Is she supposed to hold that? Perhaps she tastes the hesitance as indication of worry for the oil or just something else, because she ducks into into the living room, returning with a pair of fresh leather gloves that look like they haven't seen any oily use. At least yet. "Alright."
Illyana takes the gloved hand, starts the watch, and tugs through. Rus is indeed somewhere in the indeterminate fall, mist clinging stubbornly to each dip in the last, even though the sunlight says it's near sunset, not early morning. The colors are saturated, hard on the eyes and as much an implicit challenge as the slight edge of the seat sense of danger that envelopes one. Illyana glances at the watch and pulls them toward evergreens at a brisk pace.
Faust stumbles after Illyana with that one clutched in hers, sensitive eyes squint against the light until she finally shades them with her other hand. Expression quizzical, she attempts to stare through the colours in confusion. "This really /is/ its own place. /What/ is it?" The shiver down her spine is shrugged off, sneakered feet tromping after the slim blonde.
"{Rus is...Rus.}" That's Russian you're hearing, Faust, straight out of a subtitled section of a Bond movie, but it's still somehow understandable. "{Do you think could figure it out if you measured something?}" That's curiosity, not challenge in Illyana's voice. She keeps up a good pace. Can't dilly-dally! Branches lean in to brush at Faust's face.
"Most things can be measured. That is why we have science, if you can't do it just yet that doesn't mean it is inexplicable," she rebuffs pleasantly. Irritation unconscious, Faust bats at the branches that attempt to brush at her skin, ducking where necessary as she trails behind. Dark eyes are wide as she looks around the space, disbelief hard to put off even with it in front of her. Wait. "Are you speaking /Russian?/"
"Da," Illyana says simply. "{It fits here.}" She shrugs. "You...understands me, yes?" Her accent makes it ironically hard to manage it in English. Branches catch at Illyana's shirt and she sighs, and stops the watch with a growl to start haraguing the trees. "{You know what happened last time! Do you want to be chopped too? I will! Just because I have a guest doesn't me you can get up to your tricks! We could be on a mission!}" A little vine catchs at Faust's ankle. Hai.
"Not...when you are trying to speak English, actually. Russian seems strangely fine." Faust says with a frown. She tugs at her scarf lightly, taking a look towards the trees that Illyana is fussing at. Then stops sharply, her ankle caught by that little vine. Freezing on the spot, she jerks her foot in an attempt to dislodge it. "Do your trees. I mean, are they normally sentient?" No. Hai. Go'way.
"{If they were /smart/, they'd stop /bothering/ us,}" Illyana says, and draws her knife. The branches jerk back, except for Faust's. It curls caressingly. Friend! A drift of laughter, almost like the sound of a stream, comes from the side.
Faust startles slightly as Illyana draws a /knife/ on the /tree/. "Uh." Right. Bending down, she gives the little one that is holding onto her a firm tug. "Off," she instructs it with a frown. "Now. Please." Right?
The little vine draws away. So mean. D: Illyana looks toward the laughter and frowns. "Hello?" she invites and takes a few steps in that direction. Faust can follow or not as she likes. The land slopes and grows more gravelly as they near a river.
Well, you aren't going to leave her here alone with the /trees/. Rising with the quick steps of someone who has seen /that/ horror movie, Faust follows after Illyana with a nervous glance back at the overly friendly trees. She skids slightly along the gravel slope, sneakers skidding down the uneven ground. "Did you hear something?"
A young woman singing a little song comes walking barefoot over the rocks. Her skirts are bright red and cheerful, but her hair is damp like she'd been swimming, wavy and a strange brown like dead reeds observed through an uneven surface of a very deep pond. "{Dance with me,}" she offers, and Illyana scoffs. The young woman smiles at Faust instead.
The woman's slick, damp and curious hair draws and pulls at Faust's attention, gaze slipping to it and the river beyond. "I am not much of a dancer?" She murmurs with a shake of her head, gloved hands clench and release briefly.
"{Please,}" Illyana says, very dry. She lifts her knife slightly. "{You know who I am.}" The young woman's eyes go wide, and she moves to link her arm with Faust's. Her skin is slightly chill and wet, but pleasingly so, like someone who dipped their hand in the river on a hot summer's day. "{I will show you the steps,}" she says, tentatively.
"Who are you?" Faust stiffens at the contact, not just at the unfamiliar sensation but at the unfamiliar brush of bare skin against her own. The scales of her arm are not so pleasant, rough and textured like those of a fish. They shift against the young woman's own skin as she gently tries to disengage with as little physical contact as possible, "I really shouldn't dance."
The young woman flinches from Illyana, then blink-blinks at Faust's skin. She strokes it if she can. Her touch might be reminiscent of moving through the water with currents on those scales. "{She can't hurt you,}" Illyana says carefully. "{But I can chase her away if you like.}"
"{Can you dance like a fish?}" the young woman asks breathlessly.
Still as a sheer of ice, Faust makes little attempt to dodge the strange woman's watery touch beyond her original pull. Her breath is sucked in with a hitch, trembling as currents seem to drag over her skin. "No. I swim," she whispers, nearly too low to be heard. Rude as can be, there is no response for Illyana with her focus caught by the stranger.
"{Dance with me,}" the young woman begs, like "dance" and "swim" are exactly the same word in her mind and she's exasperated with Faust for repeating her. She tugs Faust toward the river. There's a feeling of fascination that starts to steal over Faust, centered on the the young woman. A visual sense of the water fades.
"I--" Stumbling over her words with the same grace of her feet, tugged by the red soaked woman who dances towards the woman, Faust stutters towards the river. Her feet catch in stones. Shoes are kicked from her feet as they grow closer to the press of currents, pulled by the woman's dancing limbs and her plea. Dance with me.
Illyana hesitates, and bites her lip, but she's read Faust's file, and she did ask. She follows softly to jump into the water if necessary.
The young woman draws them both into the water. If Faust looks at her, she doesn't feel the water, just sees the woman /smiling/, and swaying with some invisible current. They will dance! She draws Faust in and in until her head is under the water and the young woman is keeping a firm grip on her arms to keep her feet on the bottom.
When Faust's head clears the water, dipping beneath the surface, Illyana can see the motion of a struggle. Mouth open and sucking in water through her teeth, she pulls an arm away from the woman so that she can tear the scarf from her throat. The fabric twists and drags in the current, likely sweeping down stream unless it catches at one of the rocks that line the river. A soft stream of bubbles stream to the surface with the flare of her gills. Beneath the water, she looks another creature entirely, skin -- no scales shimmering with a pearly iridescence and catching the gleam of the light in water, dark and luminous. She smiles back at the woman.
The young woman draws back when Faust starts to struggle, face falling. Why do all her friends leave her when she takes them dancing?? D: But then Faust doesn't sink, still, to the river bed, and she stares. Underwater, her clothes are less clear, more a suggestion of currents in the same way her hair is. She swims around Faust to look at her back.
Twisting in the water of the river like a native of its ilk, Faust turns to her side with a gentle kick as the woman swims around her, t-shirt flutter upward in the current. Her mouth opens and closes like a riverbed fish, gills flaring in the gentle act of breathing with a slit of pink to the underside. Dark eyes watch the watch with woman with perfect vision, dark and luminous as her skin.
The woman comes to stroke Faust's neck wonderingly. Then she laughs, carrying perfectly through the water, and kicks away, flashing over and around and twisting with the joy of swimming.
Flinching at that light touch, Faust darts away with a kick of her feet. She circles back around to the woman, turning on her side and echoing her motion with a toothy grin. Almost unbelievably fast, she darts forward and skims her hands along the naiad's own. Dancing.
Rusalka! Remember where you are, Faust. The young woman is happy to dance forever, but a big rock plunks into the water. Then another. "{This is not efficient at all,}" Illyana says from the riverbank, out of reach. She frowns with concern, maybe because she can't really see what's going on.
It is a very large rock. Big enough to snap Faust of of the dance and remind her that this was not what she came here for. Flashing the Rusalka a somewhat sad smile, she surfaces with a slow kick, skin shimmering in its opalescent tones. She surfaces with a gasp, seeming to choke as her lungs clear the water and she pulls in that first /uncomfortable/ breath of air.
Illyana starts a step foward at the gasp, frown deepening, but she laces her fingers together, bites her lip, and only watches.
Water sluicing down her skin, glimmering, Faust pulls herself slowly out of the river and onto the rocks. She watches Illyana with over dark eyes, lips set in a firm line as she breaths through her mouth.
The rusalka swims to shallower water, until her hair fans around her shoulders in the water, but her head is in the air. "{Will you come back and dance with me again?}" she asks desperately.
Faust shakes her head with a sad smile, stripping her sodden leather gloves from her hands and throwing them aside. "This isn't my place. It's hers," she says, throat suddenly tight as she tips her head towards Illyana. A subtle tension builds in her shoulders as she looks towards the blonde, before she shakes her head and looks towards the Rusalka once more. "What is your name?"
The rusalka's face grows tight with upset, and then dives away without answering. "{It's not nice to ask a magical creature their name,}" Illyana says softly behind Faust. "{It implies you want to control her.}" She looks confused by everything more than anything. "{You /can/ come back. If you want.}"
"Oh." Faust's face falls, that strength and comfort that had wrapped her in the river dissipating now that she is stands outside of it. "I guess I can't tell her I am sorry, then." She watches the river for a long moment, shoulders slumped. They tense once more as she turns to face Illyana, standing dripping on the riverbed with her scales gleaming.
"{Get a fish to carry your message,}" Illyana says, matter-of-factly. Apparently she is serious, because she waits for Faust to wade in and find one if she wants. "{Did you enjoy it?}" she ask cautiously. She seems a little--disquieted by Faust now.
"Get a /what/?" Faust asks, looking at Illyana as if she has just lost her damn mind. "A fish?" She can't actually be serious, dancing with Russian mermaids aside. Swallowing thickly, she takes a step away from the other woman not unaware of the disquiet. "I always enjoy swimming," she replies softly.
Illyana abruptly scrubs a hand through her hair. "{She drowns people.}" She tips her chin to the direction the rusalka swam off. "{I know your world is different, you're different, it's just--I'm used to the creatures here.}"
That answer earns a flat stare. "She drowns people and you thought it would be lovely to just let me dance with potential death then?" Faust questions quietly, voice dark as she turns away from Illyana to collect her sneakers. "Oh. Because I am a /creature/. Take me home, Agent Rasputin."
"{No--}" Illyana makes a noise of anger with herself. "{We all are, mutants. Some kind of magic.}" She reaches to touch Faust, just to prove she can do it without reacting. "{/Can/ you drown? I told you she couldn't hurt you.}"
"We are /not/ all mutants. Some of us are just aberrations," Faust bites back, stepping away from Illyana's questing fingers. Not that she can avoid the blonde if she truly wants to watch her. Sneakers are clenched in her hand and her teeth are gritted, toes digging into the river rocks as her skin still glimmers in recognition of /what/ she is. "No. I cannot drown, but you don't know how my mutation works. Do you? Did you even know that it would work /here/?"
"{Everyone's magic--powers.}" Illyana catches herself. "{Powers work here.}" She bites her lip. "{You think--} abration? {Of yourself?}" She doesn't touch where Faust steps away.
Mouth twisted sardonically, Faust flickers her fingers towards herself. Silently slipping one of her shoes on after another.
"Nyete," Illyana shakes her head emphatically.
Laces are tugged tightly, binding leather over still damp feet with a hard jerk. "Can we go now?" Faust asks, instead of arguing with probably the only word of Russian that she knows from spy films.
"{Do you want to go back to your apartment?}" Illyana asks. She hesitates, then tries in one more burst. "{I--think about things all wrong all the time. You read my file and my psych profile already, yes? You looked right in the water.}"
"Whichever one is closest," Faust mutters, sliding her hands back over her shorn hair as she glances at Illyana from the corner of her eye. Her gills mar the flesh of her neck, running from the back of her ear and curving down towards her Adam's apple. She scoffs darkly, glancing towards Illyana. "No. I think you were right."
Illyana gestures, back the way they came. "{They look perfectly natural when you're not hiding them.}" That, she's sincere about. All the creatures must give her a new sense of natural.
Faust starts off in the indicated direction. She slides her hands into her soaked pockets, shoulders hunched and t-shirt sliding against her skin. "Sure."
Illyana tries again to squeeze the other woman's shoulder reassuringly. Whether she allows that or not, Illyana won't allow her to pass through the red portal at the end of their road without touching her hand, and waits for her to take it as long as necessary.
Flinching away from the small blonde's touch, Faust remains sullen and uneasy on their trek back through Rus. Her squinting in the hazy light cannot hide the dark edge of her features, teeth gritted. The majority of her scales fade in the time in takes to walk back to their entry point; those adjacent to cloth continue to shimmer, lingering with the damp of the fabric. Her hand is given grudgingly, skin alien and rough to Illyana's own.
Illyana doesn't flinch from the sensation. They arrive in front of Illyana's room, not Faust's, but she turns in the right direction and releases Faust's hand. She starts in Russian, tries again. "I'll get a fish to send your message," she offers.
In a similar jerk to a fish pulling away from a predator's jaws, Faust pulls her hand away as soon as Illyana has released it. Turned in the correct direction, she starts towards her own apartment only to stop at Illyana's offer. "Thank you. Tell she can keep the scarf," she says, voice short and clipped. That is all. Without looking towards Illyana again, she vanishes into her own apartment.
A box with a note outside Faust's door:
"The fish brought this back for you. Well. Not this. But I made one here to match the one in Rus. Come get the real one in Rus, and I suspect you can us it to call her."
Inside is some knotted string, like from a net, with various fish bones caught in the knots. The length suggests a necklace.
Maybe it is a strange time for this. But Illyana's here with one of her peasant blouses on over her jeans, knife at the small of her back, and hair loose. She also has a stopwatch, liberated from some set of training equipment. She hesitates at Faust's door, then knocks.
"Just a...second?" There is a short pause before Faust manages to make it to the door, when she does her bare arms are being wiped down with an oil stained towel. The jeans she wears bare the same marks of ill treatment, as does her t-shirt. The scarf that hastily has been slung around her neck is lopsided and marked with rather telling fingerprints. "Uh. Hello." She does an awkward two-step, angling to let Illyana into her cluttered front hall. The walls have been covered with white boards, scribbled with calculations and a pair of galoshes sit overturned on the floor.
Illyana ...blinks. Oil? Calculations on the walls? ...galoshes? Illyana comes inside and stands awkwardly with her stopwatch. She's met Faust enough times now that she doesn't try to stare at the scarf. Much. Openly. "I'm interrupting."
Subtle. Faust raises her brows slightly, notching the door shut behind Illyana. "Potentially, but it wasn't anything explosive and now I am clean." She raises a hand in demonstration, then frowns at it and scrubs away a spot of oil that she missed. "What's up, Agent Rasputin?"
"What was it?" Illyana lifts her stopwatch. "I was going to--well, it's silly, that's why I'm doing it on the weekend, but I wanted to show you I can be more efficient, yes?"
That pulls Faust to a standstill for a more, glancing from Illyana's face to the stopwatch in her hand. "More efficient--Oh. Than toast?"
"Well, more efficient than going across the room to get something. Like toast. Yes." A tentative smile flickers. "Though we could use a piece of toast if you want."
"No, it's late for toast. I mean -- I'd be interested to see that," Faust says, perking up slightly as she takes another wide-eyed glance at Illyana's stopwatch. "Yes."
Illyana holds up the watch. "We can time how long it takes us to somewhere on base my way, and then we can come back normally, yes? To compare." She looks vaguely over her shoulder. "Where would you like to go?"
"I suppose somewhere walkable to return? Reservoir?" Faust suggests, rubbing at her arms with the towel. "That seems like it would be far enough away to...count."
"I have a where there I use often," Illyana says. "And it's far enough to make things clearly faster." She bounces on her toes in anticipation, then makes herself pause. "Did you want to--change, or wash or anything? I know I showed up unexpectedly."
"Do I need to like do anything to make the trip?" Faust looks down at herself, giving her hands another rough scrub before tossing the towel aside. Adjusting her scarf so it is even, she raises her brows at Illyana. This is presentable enough right? Oil splatters and a scarf.
"It might be chilly, but it hasn't been winter lately," Illyana says, with consideration. She holds out a hand, a little hesitant like she's expecting the feel of oil. "You'll be fine."
"I'm from Michigan," Faust offers a little wryly. She eyes the extended hand for a moment. Is she supposed to hold that? Perhaps she tastes the hesitance as indication of worry for the oil or just something else, because she ducks into into the living room, returning with a pair of fresh leather gloves that look like they haven't seen any oily use. At least yet. "Alright."
Illyana takes the gloved hand, starts the watch, and tugs through. Rus is indeed somewhere in the indeterminate fall, mist clinging stubbornly to each dip in the last, even though the sunlight says it's near sunset, not early morning. The colors are saturated, hard on the eyes and as much an implicit challenge as the slight edge of the seat sense of danger that envelopes one. Illyana glances at the watch and pulls them toward evergreens at a brisk pace.
Faust stumbles after Illyana with that one clutched in hers, sensitive eyes squint against the light until she finally shades them with her other hand. Expression quizzical, she attempts to stare through the colours in confusion. "This really /is/ its own place. /What/ is it?" The shiver down her spine is shrugged off, sneakered feet tromping after the slim blonde.
"{Rus is...Rus.}" That's Russian you're hearing, Faust, straight out of a subtitled section of a Bond movie, but it's still somehow understandable. "{Do you think could figure it out if you measured something?}" That's curiosity, not challenge in Illyana's voice. She keeps up a good pace. Can't dilly-dally! Branches lean in to brush at Faust's face.
"Most things can be measured. That is why we have science, if you can't do it just yet that doesn't mean it is inexplicable," she rebuffs pleasantly. Irritation unconscious, Faust bats at the branches that attempt to brush at her skin, ducking where necessary as she trails behind. Dark eyes are wide as she looks around the space, disbelief hard to put off even with it in front of her. Wait. "Are you speaking /Russian?/"
"Da," Illyana says simply. "{It fits here.}" She shrugs. "You...understands me, yes?" Her accent makes it ironically hard to manage it in English. Branches catch at Illyana's shirt and she sighs, and stops the watch with a growl to start haraguing the trees. "{You know what happened last time! Do you want to be chopped too? I will! Just because I have a guest doesn't me you can get up to your tricks! We could be on a mission!}" A little vine catchs at Faust's ankle. Hai.
"Not...when you are trying to speak English, actually. Russian seems strangely fine." Faust says with a frown. She tugs at her scarf lightly, taking a look towards the trees that Illyana is fussing at. Then stops sharply, her ankle caught by that little vine. Freezing on the spot, she jerks her foot in an attempt to dislodge it. "Do your trees. I mean, are they normally sentient?" No. Hai. Go'way.
"{If they were /smart/, they'd stop /bothering/ us,}" Illyana says, and draws her knife. The branches jerk back, except for Faust's. It curls caressingly. Friend! A drift of laughter, almost like the sound of a stream, comes from the side.
Faust startles slightly as Illyana draws a /knife/ on the /tree/. "Uh." Right. Bending down, she gives the little one that is holding onto her a firm tug. "Off," she instructs it with a frown. "Now. Please." Right?
The little vine draws away. So mean. D: Illyana looks toward the laughter and frowns. "Hello?" she invites and takes a few steps in that direction. Faust can follow or not as she likes. The land slopes and grows more gravelly as they near a river.
Well, you aren't going to leave her here alone with the /trees/. Rising with the quick steps of someone who has seen /that/ horror movie, Faust follows after Illyana with a nervous glance back at the overly friendly trees. She skids slightly along the gravel slope, sneakers skidding down the uneven ground. "Did you hear something?"
A young woman singing a little song comes walking barefoot over the rocks. Her skirts are bright red and cheerful, but her hair is damp like she'd been swimming, wavy and a strange brown like dead reeds observed through an uneven surface of a very deep pond. "{Dance with me,}" she offers, and Illyana scoffs. The young woman smiles at Faust instead.
The woman's slick, damp and curious hair draws and pulls at Faust's attention, gaze slipping to it and the river beyond. "I am not much of a dancer?" She murmurs with a shake of her head, gloved hands clench and release briefly.
"{Please,}" Illyana says, very dry. She lifts her knife slightly. "{You know who I am.}" The young woman's eyes go wide, and she moves to link her arm with Faust's. Her skin is slightly chill and wet, but pleasingly so, like someone who dipped their hand in the river on a hot summer's day. "{I will show you the steps,}" she says, tentatively.
"Who are you?" Faust stiffens at the contact, not just at the unfamiliar sensation but at the unfamiliar brush of bare skin against her own. The scales of her arm are not so pleasant, rough and textured like those of a fish. They shift against the young woman's own skin as she gently tries to disengage with as little physical contact as possible, "I really shouldn't dance."
The young woman flinches from Illyana, then blink-blinks at Faust's skin. She strokes it if she can. Her touch might be reminiscent of moving through the water with currents on those scales. "{She can't hurt you,}" Illyana says carefully. "{But I can chase her away if you like.}"
"{Can you dance like a fish?}" the young woman asks breathlessly.
Still as a sheer of ice, Faust makes little attempt to dodge the strange woman's watery touch beyond her original pull. Her breath is sucked in with a hitch, trembling as currents seem to drag over her skin. "No. I swim," she whispers, nearly too low to be heard. Rude as can be, there is no response for Illyana with her focus caught by the stranger.
"{Dance with me,}" the young woman begs, like "dance" and "swim" are exactly the same word in her mind and she's exasperated with Faust for repeating her. She tugs Faust toward the river. There's a feeling of fascination that starts to steal over Faust, centered on the the young woman. A visual sense of the water fades.
"I--" Stumbling over her words with the same grace of her feet, tugged by the red soaked woman who dances towards the woman, Faust stutters towards the river. Her feet catch in stones. Shoes are kicked from her feet as they grow closer to the press of currents, pulled by the woman's dancing limbs and her plea. Dance with me.
Illyana hesitates, and bites her lip, but she's read Faust's file, and she did ask. She follows softly to jump into the water if necessary.
The young woman draws them both into the water. If Faust looks at her, she doesn't feel the water, just sees the woman /smiling/, and swaying with some invisible current. They will dance! She draws Faust in and in until her head is under the water and the young woman is keeping a firm grip on her arms to keep her feet on the bottom.
When Faust's head clears the water, dipping beneath the surface, Illyana can see the motion of a struggle. Mouth open and sucking in water through her teeth, she pulls an arm away from the woman so that she can tear the scarf from her throat. The fabric twists and drags in the current, likely sweeping down stream unless it catches at one of the rocks that line the river. A soft stream of bubbles stream to the surface with the flare of her gills. Beneath the water, she looks another creature entirely, skin -- no scales shimmering with a pearly iridescence and catching the gleam of the light in water, dark and luminous. She smiles back at the woman.
The young woman draws back when Faust starts to struggle, face falling. Why do all her friends leave her when she takes them dancing?? D: But then Faust doesn't sink, still, to the river bed, and she stares. Underwater, her clothes are less clear, more a suggestion of currents in the same way her hair is. She swims around Faust to look at her back.
Twisting in the water of the river like a native of its ilk, Faust turns to her side with a gentle kick as the woman swims around her, t-shirt flutter upward in the current. Her mouth opens and closes like a riverbed fish, gills flaring in the gentle act of breathing with a slit of pink to the underside. Dark eyes watch the watch with woman with perfect vision, dark and luminous as her skin.
The woman comes to stroke Faust's neck wonderingly. Then she laughs, carrying perfectly through the water, and kicks away, flashing over and around and twisting with the joy of swimming.
Flinching at that light touch, Faust darts away with a kick of her feet. She circles back around to the woman, turning on her side and echoing her motion with a toothy grin. Almost unbelievably fast, she darts forward and skims her hands along the naiad's own. Dancing.
Rusalka! Remember where you are, Faust. The young woman is happy to dance forever, but a big rock plunks into the water. Then another. "{This is not efficient at all,}" Illyana says from the riverbank, out of reach. She frowns with concern, maybe because she can't really see what's going on.
It is a very large rock. Big enough to snap Faust of of the dance and remind her that this was not what she came here for. Flashing the Rusalka a somewhat sad smile, she surfaces with a slow kick, skin shimmering in its opalescent tones. She surfaces with a gasp, seeming to choke as her lungs clear the water and she pulls in that first /uncomfortable/ breath of air.
Illyana starts a step foward at the gasp, frown deepening, but she laces her fingers together, bites her lip, and only watches.
Water sluicing down her skin, glimmering, Faust pulls herself slowly out of the river and onto the rocks. She watches Illyana with over dark eyes, lips set in a firm line as she breaths through her mouth.
The rusalka swims to shallower water, until her hair fans around her shoulders in the water, but her head is in the air. "{Will you come back and dance with me again?}" she asks desperately.
Faust shakes her head with a sad smile, stripping her sodden leather gloves from her hands and throwing them aside. "This isn't my place. It's hers," she says, throat suddenly tight as she tips her head towards Illyana. A subtle tension builds in her shoulders as she looks towards the blonde, before she shakes her head and looks towards the Rusalka once more. "What is your name?"
The rusalka's face grows tight with upset, and then dives away without answering. "{It's not nice to ask a magical creature their name,}" Illyana says softly behind Faust. "{It implies you want to control her.}" She looks confused by everything more than anything. "{You /can/ come back. If you want.}"
"Oh." Faust's face falls, that strength and comfort that had wrapped her in the river dissipating now that she is stands outside of it. "I guess I can't tell her I am sorry, then." She watches the river for a long moment, shoulders slumped. They tense once more as she turns to face Illyana, standing dripping on the riverbed with her scales gleaming.
"{Get a fish to carry your message,}" Illyana says, matter-of-factly. Apparently she is serious, because she waits for Faust to wade in and find one if she wants. "{Did you enjoy it?}" she ask cautiously. She seems a little--disquieted by Faust now.
"Get a /what/?" Faust asks, looking at Illyana as if she has just lost her damn mind. "A fish?" She can't actually be serious, dancing with Russian mermaids aside. Swallowing thickly, she takes a step away from the other woman not unaware of the disquiet. "I always enjoy swimming," she replies softly.
Illyana abruptly scrubs a hand through her hair. "{She drowns people.}" She tips her chin to the direction the rusalka swam off. "{I know your world is different, you're different, it's just--I'm used to the creatures here.}"
That answer earns a flat stare. "She drowns people and you thought it would be lovely to just let me dance with potential death then?" Faust questions quietly, voice dark as she turns away from Illyana to collect her sneakers. "Oh. Because I am a /creature/. Take me home, Agent Rasputin."
"{No--}" Illyana makes a noise of anger with herself. "{We all are, mutants. Some kind of magic.}" She reaches to touch Faust, just to prove she can do it without reacting. "{/Can/ you drown? I told you she couldn't hurt you.}"
"We are /not/ all mutants. Some of us are just aberrations," Faust bites back, stepping away from Illyana's questing fingers. Not that she can avoid the blonde if she truly wants to watch her. Sneakers are clenched in her hand and her teeth are gritted, toes digging into the river rocks as her skin still glimmers in recognition of /what/ she is. "No. I cannot drown, but you don't know how my mutation works. Do you? Did you even know that it would work /here/?"
"{Everyone's magic--powers.}" Illyana catches herself. "{Powers work here.}" She bites her lip. "{You think--} abration? {Of yourself?}" She doesn't touch where Faust steps away.
Mouth twisted sardonically, Faust flickers her fingers towards herself. Silently slipping one of her shoes on after another.
"Nyete," Illyana shakes her head emphatically.
Laces are tugged tightly, binding leather over still damp feet with a hard jerk. "Can we go now?" Faust asks, instead of arguing with probably the only word of Russian that she knows from spy films.
"{Do you want to go back to your apartment?}" Illyana asks. She hesitates, then tries in one more burst. "{I--think about things all wrong all the time. You read my file and my psych profile already, yes? You looked right in the water.}"
"Whichever one is closest," Faust mutters, sliding her hands back over her shorn hair as she glances at Illyana from the corner of her eye. Her gills mar the flesh of her neck, running from the back of her ear and curving down towards her Adam's apple. She scoffs darkly, glancing towards Illyana. "No. I think you were right."
Illyana gestures, back the way they came. "{They look perfectly natural when you're not hiding them.}" That, she's sincere about. All the creatures must give her a new sense of natural.
Faust starts off in the indicated direction. She slides her hands into her soaked pockets, shoulders hunched and t-shirt sliding against her skin. "Sure."
Illyana tries again to squeeze the other woman's shoulder reassuringly. Whether she allows that or not, Illyana won't allow her to pass through the red portal at the end of their road without touching her hand, and waits for her to take it as long as necessary.
Flinching away from the small blonde's touch, Faust remains sullen and uneasy on their trek back through Rus. Her squinting in the hazy light cannot hide the dark edge of her features, teeth gritted. The majority of her scales fade in the time in takes to walk back to their entry point; those adjacent to cloth continue to shimmer, lingering with the damp of the fabric. Her hand is given grudgingly, skin alien and rough to Illyana's own.
Illyana doesn't flinch from the sensation. They arrive in front of Illyana's room, not Faust's, but she turns in the right direction and releases Faust's hand. She starts in Russian, tries again. "I'll get a fish to send your message," she offers.
In a similar jerk to a fish pulling away from a predator's jaws, Faust pulls her hand away as soon as Illyana has released it. Turned in the correct direction, she starts towards her own apartment only to stop at Illyana's offer. "Thank you. Tell she can keep the scarf," she says, voice short and clipped. That is all. Without looking towards Illyana again, she vanishes into her own apartment.