sixthiterationlogs | 004 Unhappy changes [OPEN]

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004 Unhappy changes [OPEN]

WHO: Wanda Maximoff
WHERE: Home/Inn/Woods
WHEN: May 1st - 8th
OPEN TO: EVERYONE
WARNINGS: None yet
STATUS: OPEN

Home - May 1st – Early Morning

It wasn’t unusual for Wanda to be woken by her nightmares. They came more readily here than they had at home, playing over every loss and uncertainty like a Scooby Doo rerun on TV. Lately her dreams have been about her brother and more often than not she’d find herself jolting awake by slinging a ball of red sparks across the room. This morning brought no damage to her surroundings. Her heart pounded frantically in her chest while sweat matted her long dark hair to her neck and shoulders.

She was quick to get dressed, pulling on her jeans and the white tank top that she’d been given on her arrival. The house was warm though she could feel the morning chill creeping like thin tendrils through the air. With a heavy sign Wanda kicked open the door to her room and headed down stairs to see how much of the night’s fire was still burning in the hearth. Her fingers laced through her hair pulling the brown silky strands back from her face. When she reached the living room Wanda extended her fingertips out towards the far side of the room, willing her powers to move a log onto the fire.

Nothing happened.

She called for her abilities again but nothing happened. "Move." She kept her hand pointed towards the far side of the room, her voice harsh as she glared at the stack of logs. "MOVE!" Wanda shouted as she quickly stepped towards the small stack of logs, kicking the one she’d been commanding halfway across the room. The log thumped loudly against the floor. She wanted to scream at the piece of wood but what little self-control she had stopped her.

Woods/Around - May 1st - All Day

Eventually Wanda left her house. Tension was set in her shoulders as she walked straight for the forests edge. She didn’t want to believe that her powers were gone, that there was now nothing she could do. She was helpless, defenseless. She couldn’t protect anyone.

She’d had her powers for so long; she didn’t know how to handle them being gone.

When she reached the trees she shouted, listening to her pained cry carry over the canopy. She kicked at the trees around her, her boots stopping with every solid object that she’d come into contact with. Rage, pain, fear, frustration and hate mingled in her chest as she lashed out at everything around her. She threw a fist into the tree, feeling the rough texture of the bark scrape and bruise her knuckles. Again and again she hit the trunk of the tree, wishing she could push all of her feelings away.

When she returned her town her knuckles were bloody and brushed, her hair matted to her neck where a thin layer of sweat covered her skin. She looked tired and worn out, having managed to release the bulk her frustration in the woods.

Inn/Around - May 2nd - 8th - Brooding

Wanda could be found in many places throughout the village. She was determined to prove that being without her powers didn’t change anything. She knew it did but it was the only way she could fight the frustration that knotted and grew uncomfortably in her chest.

Early in the morning Wanda would split wood for her home, occasionally kicking a piece of timber that wouldn’t split properly. She helped Kate preserve the meat at the inn; this never required the use of her abilities and was now one of Wanda’s favorite tasks. While every other after noon she could be found cooking at the inn, using the few spices that she knew and testing the ones she didn’t. Wanda wasn’t sure when the last time she ate was. She remembered making food but not eating it.

In the evenings Wanda dreaded to return home. It was when she was trying to sleep, alone in her room that she’d lose herself to her thoughts and her doubt. It was stupid. She knew that but so many things were changing and there was nothing she could do to stop it. A distraction, all she needed was a distraction.

She could usually be found sitting at a random table in the common area. There was a button on the table in front of her; sometimes she’d spin it on its side with her finger while other times she’d just stare at it, expecting something to happen. Towards the beginning of the month she’d search for any abandoned liquor from the feast, welcoming the dizzying sensation that it brought with it.

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"I don't either. I feel like...I feel like I'm not me anymore," Jean admitted. It made her angry in a lot of ways, angry enough that she felt like taking it out on the tree the way that Wanda just had. It also just made her feel sad, as if a part of her had been taken away without her permission and she was empty now, bereft. It wasn't right.

"They're trying to make us weaker," she said. She'd expressed these feelings before to Logan and Erik but not to Wanda. "They stripped us of what we can use to protect ourselves and now they can...I don't know what they're going to do."

Jean's words felt like pin pricks against Wanda's skin. Weakened, vulnerable, they really were like test subjects trapped in a canyon. What horror would be next now that so many have lost parts of themselves.

She swallowed, the motion slow and thick. "I've never been sure how to think of myself." She admitted with her eyes focused on the tree in front of her. She saw where her fist had contacted the bark, where blood had seeped into the rough brown surface. "Now I don't know again."

The tension in her voice tightened. "I can't protect anyone like this and those damn Seers-" She exhaled, trying to force herself to calm down. She didn't know the names of those who've been watching them but she called them Seers in her head. The name was short and to the point and it did what she needed it to do; it provided a label.

"We're all vulnerable," Jean finished.

"And I don't like feeling that way. In my world, humans and mutants don't get along. Humans do anything they can to suppress mutants, to hurt them, to force them into hiding. It's getting better, sure, but we're still second class citizens. Now I'm a mutant but I've been stripped of my power. How am I going to keep myself safe?"

Wanda looked over at Jean and shrugged. She had no answers for her. "The same way Clint and Sam do." They try their very hardest to fight back. Wanda wasn't ready to give up just yet but that didn't stop the overwhelming feeling of helplessness that gripped at her center.

"We keep fighting." She could understand the world versus mutants but Wanda knew it was more than just that. People versus people and mutants versus mutants. It didn't matter what you were, people found reasons to fight and ways to use people.

Yes mutants were targets but so was the rest of the whole damn world. Fighting endlessly until both sides lost.

"We can't give up," Jean agreed. She'd gotten discouraged earlier, worried that the loss of her mutation meant she'd given up all the ways she knew how to fight but was that the only thing that made up who she was? Was she only a telepath, only a telekinetic, only a mutant?

No. She could be all of those things and more and having her powers stripped didn't change that.

Wanda wasn't very good at giving up. Her and her brother had never given up and she was used to far greater odds than this. She was used to the pair of them against a country or a world. It didn't matter what she faced now because she'd keep going. That didn't mean she'd like it or be okay with it but she couldn't let herself be beaten.

"So what do we do?" She didn't have an answer and she didn't expect Jean to either but the question was there, balancing at the tip of her tongue.

"I don't know. We have to do something, though, and figure out a way we can fight back even if we don't have our abilities."

Jean bit her lip a little, trying to think through this. She might not have her telepathy or her telekinesis but she still had her mind. It could figure a way out of this. It had to.

"We have to find out how they're doing this. If it's another mutant or whatever it is that took our powers?"

"It's most likely the people who brought us here." Wanda confirmed in a hard tone. She wanted to continue hitting the tree but she knew that talking with Jean would yield better results than being angry.

She really just wanted to be angry.

"We learn to fight without them." She knew a little bit of hand to hand combat. She had to start protecting herself from the age of ten. It developed in time because of that.

"I have been learning how to fight hand to hand with Erik," Jean said. She hadn't gotten very good at it yet because she'd always thought she'd have her telekinesis to aid her but now she had a reason to develop the physical side of her body over the mental.

"Maybe he could teach you too? Then you wouldn't be without tools to keep yourself safe, at least."

Wanda nodded her head. "I've been learning from Tim and Clint." She had spared with Erik when Peggy had her lessons but she hadn't thought to take further lessons with him. He'd stated that he wasn't particularly skilled with teaching and Wanda found no reason to press the matter.

She turned to look at the tree beside her, her gaze thoughtful and tense. "It's all we can do." Besides punching a tree.

Wanda looked down at her knuckles, eyeing where the skin had split. "I should get this bandaged."

"Yeah, you don't want it to bleed too much," Jean agreed. She tipped her head a little, assessing it. "Do you want me to help you bandage it?"

It was something she could do, anyway, as opposed to a whole lot of things she couldn't do anything about.

Wanda knew she'd have difficulty bandaging up her knuckles with only one hand and there was no guarantee that she'd run into someone at the hospital or at her home. Her home was closer, they'd go there.

"Yes. I have supplies this way." They were technically Clint's supplies but Wanda didn't think he'd mind.

She turned and waved for Jean to follow her out of the forest.

Jean was a lot less afraid of the woods now than she had been when she arrived so following Wanda was no problem. Besides, she trusted her. Maybe it wasn't the same Wanda that Pietro had called sister but in some ways, she was Pietro's sister and she trusted Pietro as much as Erik or Logan.

Mutants had to stick together.

"When did your mutation manifest? I was nine."

"It's a long story." She replied in a bit of a short tone. It wasn't something she talked about. She hadn't gotten her powers in the usual methods and she wasn't sure how to phrase that she was a test subject. Everyone before now already knew about it, so it never came up.

"I was with my brother."

That's all she'd say about her powers. At least for now. It wasn't that she didn't trust Jean but it was to hard to say out loud. Her brother was the reason she got through all of that and her brother was gone.

"I don't have any siblings," Jean said. She was envious of that, the fact that Wanda had Pietro, but she guessed it was better that she didn't have a brother or sister that she had left behind. Jean didn't have a lot of attachments outside of the Professor before she came here to the village; now she had Moana and she didn't want to lose her.

"I manifested when I was nine. One day everything was quiet and the next day I could hear everyone's voices in my head. It took me a long time to be able to sift through what were my thoughts and what were everyone else's."

"There is no greater feeling." Wanda replied in a soft voice before stepping up to her house. She pushed open the door with her injured hand and moved towards the drawer where Clint kept extra first aid supplies.

"Here."

She pulled a wrap from the drawer and a bottle of disinfectant. "This is all we have."

"I think I can manage with this," Jean promised. She took the wrap and the disinfectant and motioned for Wanda's hand. "Here, let me patch you up."

It was only healing a physical hurt, yes, but it made Jean feel useful in a way she hadn't since waking up to the world being suddenly silent.

Wanda moved her hand over for Jean to take a look. There were pieces of bark embedded into her skin as well as brushing around the scared bloody knuckles. Wanda had been punching the tree with all her might.

"Thanks." Her voice was soft, her gaze watching Jean as she worked.

"Don't mention it," Jean said, finishing up with the bandage and pulling her hands away. It would heal, in time, but she didn't know if the two of them would heal from the loss of their powers. To Jean, it felt like an important part of her identity had been stripped away.

Who was she without being a telepath? Was she the same Jean if she couldn't move things with her telekinesis?

"Maybe they'll come back. I never thought I'd miss being able to hear other people's thoughts."

Wanda would have never given up her powers, not after everything she'd gone through to get them. They meant everything to her. With their loss she felt her connection with her brother weaken and she wished desperately she'd managed to procure the few pictures she had of both of them.

"Maybe." She agreed softly. "I don't think so but we can try and get them back."

It was the same goal as getting out of this place but now it felt more urgent and less possible than ever.

"I don't feel like me without them. I need them back," Jean agreed. She would work on trying to figure out how they had been taken from them in the first place and if there was a way to get them back, she was going to do it.

Who was she if she wasn't a telepath? Who was Jean Grey without that ever-present part of her?

"We're going to figure it out, Wanda."

Wanda nodded her head solemnly; there was noticeable doubt in the gesture but she was trying to remain strong. She flexed her fingers gingerly before putting away the medical supplies they'd gotten out. She moved slowly, as if each motion had to be considered prior to being executed.

Who was she? It was a question Wanda had been considering for a while now and she still didn't know the answer.

"I hope so."

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004 Unhappy changes [OPEN]

Home - May 1st – Early Morning

Woods/Around - May 1st - All Day

Inn/Around - May 2nd - 8th - Brooding

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