001 Arrival Post

[scepterschild]

WHO: Wanda Maximoff
WHERE: Fountain & Around
WHEN: February 12th
OPEN TO: EVERYONE!
WARNINGS: Threatening people in the first post.
STATUS: CLOSED

---

Fountain; Very Early Morning

Wanda pushed her way from the fountain, a noticeable frown tugging at her lips as she moved. She was soaked, it was freezing and she had no idea how she got here. Moving quickly, Wanda pulled the backpack from her shoulders and rummaged through its contents. She didn't know what she was expecting to find but she was grateful to see a set of dry clothes stashed inside. After making sure that there wasn't anyone watching, Wanda began to strip off the wet layers and pull on what she had found.

Her movements were quick as she pulled the pale gray scrubs over her head. Any sound or inclination of another person would cause her focus to shift. She'd quickly turn towards her new company, red mist snapping an icicle from nearby shooting it towards the stranger.

Wanda would stop her attack just before striking. She wanted answers.

Around; Mid-Day

Wanda took the time to explore the village; learning the few threads of information that were available as well as who else was around. Her powers felt different, distant, and her tests to use them confirmed that a large fraction of her strength had been taken from her. It was frustrating and it pulled at the strands of tension that gathered beneath her breastbone.

She didn't like feeling like a rat in a cage.

She meandered through the village and around it's outskirts, her eyes inspecting for details that might offer a clue that others have missed. Wanda was familiar with cold weather and snow; neither deterred her from having a look around however she didn't wander very far.

Near the Inn; Night Sky

As the afternoon drifted away from Wanda she began to noticed the intensity of the lights stretching across the sky. She's seen auroras in the past. They were streaks of light that curled like brilliant ocean waves against the dark contrast of night. She had hoped to see the stars but the auroras were shining like a second sun, efficiently hiding anything else from sight.

"Hmm?" Her tone was soft, her chin tilted up to stare at the sky. "How is it that people sleep."

Wanda knew she should sleep but her thoughts were heavy and distracting. The auroras gave her something to focus on and for the moment she wanted that distraction.

Comments

[scepterschild]

Wanda continued to watch and listen to Jyn. There wasn't very much she knew but she knew that she could learn more by watching those around her. Right now her focus was set on Jyn; like any good listener.

"Gifts? What sort of gifts?" The setting wasn't to hard to determine from what little Wanda had seen. She'd seen the higher cliff faces but she hadn't thought that climbing would be safe, not with her powers being so uncertain. "I can move things with my mind." It was a bit obvious to Wanda since she'd threatened Jyn a few moments before. It was obviously something that she could use to help.

There was one thing that Jyn said that surprised Wanda. "You think people would have started to kill each other?" It wasn't spoken with judgement but curiosity. Wanda might have read Jyn's tone incorrectly but that's how it sounded to her. Was Jyn used to that level of cruelty?

[kestreldawn]

"Just - gifts. Flint, knives, toiletries, those sorts of things. There's no explanation, and I don't believe anyone's seen it arrive in real-time. Only after-the-fact." Jyn herself had only just received a handful of hair elastics and a hairbrush - miraculously there in the cabin, when she woke. She imagines that Cassian had obtained his flint and steel in a similar fashion, though she hadn't thought to ask him. "The spear," she motions to it, "Wasn't a gift; it was something I ended up making - both for hunting and for protection." There's a glimmer of something in her eyes, then, something like amusement. "Yes, I imagine that skill will come in handy - I don't believe I've met anyone else with that ability."

It reminds her of the stories she'd heard, of the Jedi - their ability to tap into The Force, use it and manipulate it. She'd never seen it happen in person, but she'd heard the stories from her mother. Objects rising in the air, things snatched out of someone's hands, things and people flying across a whole room. Mind tricks, deception. It had all seemed like a rather inventive bedtime story when Jyn was young, but now - seeing it in the flesh, even if it wasn't quite The Force as she knew it, made her question whether her mother had been right all along.

"- Naturally," Jyn replies, eyebrows slightly stitched at the surprise. She's known no other life. "Desperation, confusion, resentment, anger - they bring out the worst in people. I think the fact that we come through the fountain without any weapons is what has often prevented it from happening. Gives the new arrival a chance to calm down a bit without going trigger-happy out of panic."

[scepterschild]

Wanda hummed softly, finding the arrival of gifts to be an odd sort of thing. What power would place them in a hole in the ground with so little and then give them gifts? It felt like an experiment and they were the test subjects. Discomfort crawled across Wanda's skin but she tried to hide it. She had no interest in being a test subject for a second time. At least the first time she'd had a choice.

"You aren't afraid of me?" She asked the question using a short tone, attempting to hide her surprise. Her powers were great and her improvement when training showed that she's barely scratched the surface of what they could do. She was used to being feared, even if it wasn't a comfortable feeling.

"A common goal can also unite people. Give them something to work at. Without that there would be chaos." This was something that Wanda knew very well. The Avengers were only ever at their strongest when they were working together.

[kestreldawn]

Jyn picks up on the shift in the woman's demeanor at the news of the gifts - it was similar to the way Jyn herself had felt when she'd seen the items mysteriously show up one morning. She'd thought that perhaps Cassian had left them for her, knowing that she'd liked to have the bulk of her hair out of her face, but when she'd asked, he'd denied procuring them for her. She'd had no reason to distrust him, not after what they'd been through - and she knew there was no other explanation as no one else had been inside of their home. The initial excitement she'd felt at seeing the gifts had worn off quickly, then, and it felt more intrusive, more violating than anything.

Though, there had still been a strange part of her that had felt grateful, all the same.

"Not particularly, no," Jyn replies simply. "You've not given me reason to, not yet." Of course, she did almost send an icicle through her throat, but that's besides the point. "Where I'm from, I grew up hearing tales about people with your abilities. But I'd always thought they were fictional, purely fantasy. It's - kind of intriguing, to find out they might not have been."

Jyn nods slowly, as though wrapping her mind around the concept, then ultimately agreeing upon it.

"It can - and that's what it seems to be doing so far. I'm used to the biggest threat being the destruction brought about by other people - so the fact that I don't necessarily have to worry about that as much here is - refreshing."

[scepterschild]

"I've never met anyone with my powers." That was half true. She knew Vision but he'd been born from one of the infinity stones, the one that had been in Loki's staff, the same staff that had formed and birthed her own abilities. The difference was that she was human and she'd under gone tests and experiments to gain her abilities; all to fight back against those who had hurt her and her brother.

It was strange to think that Jyn didn't fear her and Wanda found herself a bit grateful for it. She didn't want to be feared. She wanted to be seen as herself. The world had other plans it seemed but here, here she could just be herself.

"Do you know what's been done here? Finding who is keeping us?" Wanda was less worried about escape and more worried about whatever powerful source could not only keep them there, but diminish her abilities.

[kestreldawn]

"I can't say whether there are any here with them, as I've not met everyone in the village. I know there are a few others from my galaxy, but I can't say whether they share your abilities or not," Jyn replies quietly. At the back of her mind, despite all attempts to keep it tamped down, she can hear her mother's voice floating through her skull - trust the Force - queerly laid over the sound of Chirrut's mantra she'd come to know so well in those final days - I am one with the Force, the Force is with me. She'd doubted them both, but now - sitting across from a woman who seemed to possess the abilities she'd never believed in - there's an odd stone's drop of shame in her stomach.

"I'm afraid I don't know much; I know that many are curious, but that many are suspicious. As though -" She pauses, finding herself falling into the same trap as Kira had when they'd first talked, vaguely fearful there was someone listening, somewhere. "As though they've bugged all the areas, somehow watch everything. I know that a few who'd attempted to climb out of the canyon were struck down."

[scepterschild]

Wanda nodded her head."I'd like to met someone with my abilities." It was a passing comment and a subtle way of asking Jyn to tell her if such a person arrived. It'd be nice to talk to someone like her. Wanda's powers were often seen as a destructive force, it was hardly something that people celebrated, but she'd signed up for it and she wasn't going to regret her choice.

"My powers are weaker here. If they are able to do that, they might be able to do more without us knowing." Wanda felt the tension in her shoulders knot but she didn't show it. Again there was that feeling, of being a test subject in a cage.

Wanda knew that feeling.

[kestreldawn]

"If I find someone who has them, I will be sure to find you," Jyn replies, tone wholesomely genuine. She studies Wanda's face for a moment, knows the feeling of wanting to find solidarity in another person who'd been what she'd been through. Knows the connection it creates, innate and deep and unbreakable. The same kind of connection she'd had to Cassian, another child soldier forced to do things he hadn't wanted, too young, too soon. "I promise," she adds, voice a bit quieter. Jyn's not, by nature, a very generous person - how could she be, when she'd barely had anything of her own to begin with? - but if she can somehow provide the same peace for someone else that she'd managed to find in Cassian, she will. She'll try.

"Very true. A -" she pauses, feeling the next word out on her tongue tentatively before finally spitting it out, "Friend, that I made here, told me that his theory is that we're somehow .. captured, unsure of how seeing as we're from all different areas, but - the bottom of the fountain is solid, no way in or out, according to him. And many of us were gravely injured or dead (or should have been) when we arrived, but when we come out of the fountain, we're healed - alive. He thinks that perhaps they catch us somehow, drug us to keep us unconscious, heal us - put us in the fountain where we wake up." Jyn clenches her jaw as she remembers the way the bile in her stomach had erupted into her mouth when Kira had first told her his theory. There's still a gurgling in her gut now, but the reaction isn't as violent as it had been before. "I'm not sure what to believe myself."

[scepterschild]

Wanda nodded her head in a silent thank you. She didn't like talking about her past but it'd always been a struggle, a fight against everyone around her. She'd lost the one person who understood and she didn't expect to find another.

"Last I remember I was fine." Her voice was thick and her accent heavier. "There was an explosion but it was far away." It wasn't a bad theory but there was no way to prove it. It did feel like someone was keeping them here.

"Is there no way to find more?"

[kestreldawn]

She appreciates the lack of verbalized appreciation. It's a saying rarely felt and put forth from her own tongue, and hearing it from others always makes her shift somewhat uncomfortably, unsure of how to respond. She likes to communicate through silences - through glances and looks and the minutiae of micro expressions. It's refreshing to find someone else who seems to prefer them, too.

"Mm," Jyn murmurs in confirmation. She hesitates for a moment before adding, "I was supposed to have died before I woke up here. There's no logical explanation for me being here, except that it's some kriffed up version of an afterlife." It isn't all bad, she thinks to herself; although circumstances were less than ideal, it provided her the opportunity to live the life she'd had stolen from her - the one she'd seen in Cassian's eyes, those silent moments in the elevator. But now, of course, instead of the urge to look for a way out, she's more concerned with the urge to make it all stay. "I'm not sure; I've yet to amass a group to go out for an expedition. It'd be better to go with another person, instead of alone." She pauses. "You can let me know when you are able to join, if you are interested."

[scepterschild]

Wanda inclined her head in a nod. There was more to be said but she felt herself falling into her thoughts. She turned each item over in her mind and tried to piece together the connections. She wished she had something to write with but she'd make due with what she had.

"I will." She finally responded. "Thank you." With her thanks spoken she continued, not wanting to linger on it.

"I need to think." She wanted to be alone. "I'm sure I'll speak to you again."

[kestreldawn]

"Of course, understood," Jyn replies, standing from the table. She lets her fingers linger on the surface of it for a moment before she replies, "I live in a cabin, in the northwest section of town - it's grey and brown." It's a vaguely worded, open invitation - in case Wanda needs her, needs to find her, anything of the sort. It's not information she gives out lightly, and the look in her eyes should convey that. She taps her fingers on the table before she nods and begins to make her exit.