2013.10.20 - A Matter of Faith

Business as usual. After spending some time in New York handling her son and the Wolverine, Mystique is back in Genosha to watch and wait as the pieces all fall into place around her. She likes to think that she's got a good view of the world at large around her, spies and informants constantly leaking her information from most every corner of the globe, and yet..sometimes it's that which lurks right in front of her which goes unnoticed. Perhaps she's spent too much time away from the island, from what has become her 'home' of late. One thing which hasn't yet changed however, something big is lurking just beyond the horizon.

It's something which she intends to discover before it catches every last mutant on the planet off guard.

At least she doesn't have to worry so much about SHIELD finding her and trying to drag her in around here, which allows for some freedom in letting her true colors step forth. By now people on Genosha know enough not to mess around with the blue-skinned chick.

Olena emerges from the Imperator's throne room, moving smoothly down the hallway. It perhaps says something important that the young mutant doesn't even acknowledge the guards that line the corridor at wide, regular intervals. Generally, the archer makes a point of making eye-contact with each of them. They know her. She knows them. And the eye contact allows her to observe each of them and gauge their mental and physical state.

Tonight, however, her steps are swift, even, and automatic. It's not so much that her guard is down -- in many ways, it's heightened. It's more that the guards aren't what she perceives as the greatest threat... or best method of defense for the moment.

She leaves the Imperial Corridor behind, moving through a side passage, heading down toward her quarters where her weapons and armour hang with appropriate care under her personal lock.

Not far away from Olena's quarters lurks a metamorph, on her way through from having had a personal conversation with one such informant. She's being brought up to speed on the home front, one mutant at a time, completely off of the record.

Right around the bend comes yet another one of Mystique's informants, though this one's a little more special. Quite often, this one is actually given some information in return. Despite having been absorbed into their own concerns lately, she still knows how to read Olena.

What she's reading from the other mutant tonight is not right at all.

Rather than offering her usual sly looking grin of acknowledgement she keeps her expression entirely neutral, staring at the other woman with those featureless yellow eyes. Olena's being read. This is not a state of mind which she has seen the Ukrainian in before.

That's why she stops and waits, effortlessly turning to follow Olena step for step should the other mutant continue uninterrupted.

"Follow me."

Because -clearly- Olena has something on her mind. Fortunately, Raven happens to know where the safe places to talk are around this island.

Olena's head comes up automatically as she hears the familiar heartbeat down the corridor as she rounds the corner near her quarters. Her eyes alight on Mystique, and she stops short, body coming to a perfectly neutral stance. She meets the metamorph's steady gaze with one of her own.

Yes, her gaze is steady -- direct, even. But, it's also sharp, alert, guarded in that way the blue-skinned woman has probably seen when the girl is either hunting or aware she is being hunted.

Thus, she's fully aware that the unusually blank and direct look Mystique gives her is as much an evaluation as anything else. She clears her own face of expression, save for that direct look with which she holds her ground, until she hears that simple, "Follow me."

Then, there's a beat. It's a crucial beat. It's that telling moment. How much does she trust Mystique? How much should she trust Mystique? More than that, how much of her own thoughts does she care to reveal, just now.

In the end, saying nothing, she chooses to follow the metamorph -- for good or ill. (Isn't it always that way?) There's something in Mystique's own direct mien that allows the archer the unconscious assurance she needs to leave her own quarters behind... for now.

Decades of experience in the making, Mystique does know what she's doing. Particularly when handling the more cautious, skittish, or aware, there's an art to it, as there is everything else. Every manipulation, whether subtle or grand. Of course Olena would follow her, one unknown will always outweigh another unknown.

Besides, Raven's rather fond of this acute little archer. This mutant can spot, and nail, a bullseye through the most extreme conditions imaginable. The look that she's got about her today? One of having missed her mark. That..does not happen.

It's why Mystique takes control of the situation, guiding the pair into a subsection of the basement. Magneto himself probably knows it exists but he wouldn't have any reason to ever monitor this part of the island. She's used it before, from the occasional interrogation to matters of particular confidentiality.

It's not a hospitable place. Just don't ask what the stains on the concrete floor are from.

A heavy, uncomfortable metal chair is dragged over so the metamorph can plant one tall white leather boot upon the seat, leaning forward to look directly at Olena with arms lightly draped across a knee. She's silent, for a brief passing of time. Reading. Studying. Before her is a woman on edge. One about to make a snap decision, and still deciding on another one.

Having come from the direction of the Imperator's office.

"What is troubling you, dear?"

There's nothing degrading in her tone. Nothing that would suggest she's pointing a finger in Olena's direction. It's the tone of a concerned parent, if anything.

Olena follows the blue metamorph swiftly enough, but it's guaranteed she won't need all of her senses to find her way back out, no matter how convoluted the path. And, she's hyperperceptive. She doesn't need to ask what those stains on the floor are. She knows. She's a walking forensics lab.

As Mystique stops in what Olena knows full well is effectively a secret interrogation chamber, the fact the archer is a full state of Potik -- that unique sense of flow that allows her to perform the most amazing of the feats she might dare -- cannot possibly escape the perceptive metamorph. It's there as much in the girl's focussed stillness as it is in the brightness of her eyes.

And, unlike many others, Olena has never felt the need to fill empty silence up with words simply because the silence is empty. So, she's not one who gets nervous when the interrogator is silent overly long.

Thus, even after Mystique asks her maternal question, the girl remains silent for a long time. The metamorph, of course, by dint of her own abilities, is doubtlessly sensitive enough to pick up on the micro expressions that flit across the girl's face -- none of them becoming full enough to change her neutral expression for anyone any less attentive or perceptive.

But, Mystique is Mystique.

"I am anxious to leave for Ukraine," she says, now, offering a tight smile. It's not a lie. She is  quite anxious to be off on her mission. It will take her from Genosha long enough that she will be able to better evaluate those things she's seen and heard here, lately.

"Of course," Mystique replies in a soft and, oddly enough, gentle tone. She's well aware of the unfinished business Olena wants to tackle, even if she may not happen to know all of the specifics. Trouble on the home front. She's so very familiar with such scenarios.

"You do not have a flight scheduled," she continues. (Of course she keeps close tabs on her 'inner circle,' as it were!) "No standing arrangements with any of our long-range teleporters. You are in no danger of missing any personal schedules. Why, then, are you in such a hurry to leave?"

Yes, this is sounding a bit more like an interrogation and less of a discussion from a concerned friend, or colleague, or sister in arms. However one cares to look at it.

Mysti lowers her head for a moment, a fingertip lightly tracing along the outside of her knee as she considers the situation. A delicate matter, to be sure. One which she hasn't helped with her approach, but she always did enjoy a challenge!

The sharpest knife cuts the leanest slab of truth.

When eye contact is returned there's a softer edge to it, a genuine hint of concern. "Allow me to understand your plight. You do not trouble easily, yet something troubles you. I stand by my word when I promised you protection."

Olena certainly doesn't show that she's troubled easily. And she certainly doesn't trust easily -- not even the pair that saved her life so many months ago. Indeed, in this circumstance... she'd actually sooner talk to Nightcrawler, than to Mystique.

And the irony of that is not in the least lost on the girl. The X-Man is preferable to her so-called brethren.

Still, Olena knows damned well she's not going to get out of this unless she gives the woman something more concrete. Her challenge is to do so without putting herself at any greater risk than she already has. The archer knows she can't take Mystique on in a one-on-one fight and hope to win. Not yet, anyway.

Her lips thin almost imperceptibly -- another one of those micro-expressions. But, that smile from a moment earlier, to anyone else's eyes, is still on her lips. Still thin, still tight. Fixed. Her eyes narrow almost imperceptibly as well, however. An evaluating expression. She is, after all, as sensitive to micro-expressions as the metamorph.

"You have been away for quite some time, Mystique," she says now, as unafraid, generally, of addressing the blue-skinned woman in as direct a fashion as she does pan Lehnsherr. "I know you have many informants here, even still." And she knows she's counted among them. "What have they told you about the Veneratori?"

Kurt always had been true to his word, at that. Mystique's track record isn't nearly as pristine. A promise from her is only ever going to mean so much, it's true. But, she's taken to the role of being the mother of Genosha quite readily. Being as old as she is virtually every other mutant is still just a scared, lost child in a brutal world not known for showing mutantkind the love and respect it deserves.

Or the fear which it can rightly instill.

Maybe she -is- just trying to bore into Olena's mind to excavate the critical bits of data to use against the archer. Then again, maybe she isn't. Her demeanor isn't about to give the truth away, good luck there.

Even so, on the inside she's almost grinning. Olena has learned well from her.

"Very little," she freely admits. "Extremists. Shadow forces which work to tip the scales within our favor, mostly by directly opposing the rules. Have they gotten in your way?"

She's willing to bet that they aren't directly responsible for Olena's desire to bolt. There's something more at play here. She's going to have to keep cutting away, sliver by delicate sliver.

"You're avoiding the issue, Olena," she says a moment later. "You have a choice before you. Either you choose to trust me, or you do not. I stand before you here, in confidence. The door remains open. Choose your direction now, time spent upon your indecision is forever lost to us both."

Olena actually has the temerity to ignore, outwardly, Mystique's fiat. In fact, there's probably just a hint of pique that flashes through her eyes, momentary and fleeting as it is.

Impatient much? How often does that happen?

"No," she says in answer to the question Mystique asks, instead, speaking now in Ukrainian -- as she did with Magneto -- simply because it allows her to be more fluent in her speech. "But the longer they act with the Imperator's implicit blessing, the greater the likelihood is that their actions shall be perceived as ours." Clearly, she doesn't like that.

But, that's not what's bothering her.

"They need to be better controlled, before they can claim to be more than what they truly are." And here is where she is careful about how she says what she must say. "The Imperator and I, however, disagree somewhat about how that is best achieved."

Encounters with the archer are often quite enlightening. Mystique has seen her stand toe to toe with more powerful beings on several occasions, never with backing down. That she's also doing as much with Mystique?

Olena may be being serious, native language or not. The metamorph? She's chuckling. If she didn't teach this woman, herself...

Well, there'd be a few more dark stains in the floor after tonight.

Now smirking with amusement she props an elbow upon her raised knee and rests her chin within her palm, continuing to watch Olena as the gears in their conversation shift once more. Olena is still talking. She didn't choose the door.

Something else is amiss, though. 'The Imperator.' Clearly..there is more at hand than a disagreement with how Magneto happens to be operating.

"His views do have a habit of being somewhat one-sided," she agrees with another downward glance, as if disinterested in the very subject matter. No, she'd rather inspect her nails. (They're perfect already, naturally.) Unlike the archer's situation, Raven isn't concerned with saying too much. If she wanted to make sure that nothing left this room, well, she could. It's a liberating feeling.

"He also happens to focus a little too closely upon himself rather than our ultimate goals. For -all- of us. Not for 'his Majesty' and 'the Duchess.' Why he clings to such silly notions is beyond me, but whatever title allows him to fulfill our mission." Whatever it takes for him to do his job. "Only he will ever fully agree with the tactics which he employs."

In other words, Olena's not alone.

If Olena feels relief at Mystique's statement, she doesn't show it. Instead, she regards the metamorph's nonchalance with a largely neutral expression.

Still... there's a thing or two she's learned about Mystique: The most important pieces of information Mystique drops are typically -- though, true, not always -- those she chooses to appear to simply 'throw away'. Thus, when Mystique examines her nails, Olena actually knows she has the woman's attention. And that there's at least a grain of truth in what she says.

"What about the title 'Messiah'?" the archer asks casually.

The act of inspecting her nails slowly comes to a standstill when the next question is dropped. Solid yellow eyes continue to stare down at her own hand, as if processing the inquiry so thoroughly that the act of multi-tasking is suddenly lost to Mystique.

When she next seeks out Olena's gaze she asks in a soft but direct tone, "Where did you hear of this?"

Here is one of those very rare situations where her body language is accurate, and wholly readable. It's the same sort of reaction like that of a wolf when the fur on the back of its neck stands upright. One of those moments when it becomes at least passingly clear that not all is as it should be within the world.

-Messiah.-

Oh Erik, what might this all be about..?

The metamorph's uncharacteristic directness is, in fact, actually the relief Olena needed. She has the woman's undivided and honest attention, now. She doesn't actually appear to deflate, at all, but there is a subtle shift of her shoulders and a faint knitting of her brow that betrays her need to tell of what she has experienced.

"Several places," she replies, giving an off-hand shrug that is anything but. "On the streets, people look to him as if he were a saviour. And for many that brings with it religious connotations. But, to more directly answer your question... The Imperator and I have been in debate about it within the last hour."

In other words, that is why she was headed for her quarters at such a fast clip.

She grimaces, now, and raises a hand. "To be fair, and accurate, he does not claim that title for himself. At least, he has not with me. Indeed, he claims instead to abhor it." She's being frank, now, more open than she has been since they met this evening. "I believe that is... more or less true of pan Lehnsherr himself. But, the Imperator?" Again, that casual shrug that is so much like Mystique's examination of her nails. "He believes we should focus the zeal of 'true believers' like the Veneratori into religious faith in a church of his own devising."

A clear grimace touches her lips, now. "He calls it The Church of the First Mutant--" A beat. A wry smile. --"Though, apparently, that is not set in stone." He picked up on the fact Olena hated the name.

"Its doctrine sounds fine, on the surface: Peace and harmony, courtesy, social awareness, the epitome of Homo Novus... A place 'where the ideal mutant is espoused'." It's clear that last sentence is a quote.

She meets Mystique's gaze directly once more. "I am concerned that this will only breed more zealots keen to use power or devotion to hurt, imprison, or abuse those less powerful than themselves -- and that they will do it in the Imperator's name."

There it is. The underlying nugget of data that Mystique had been searching for. A conversation with Magneto, which led to -this.- And the rapid pace to her room. To leave, most likely. Olena wouldn't try to correct such an issue on her own. It would be by far easier to disappear, to return to Kiev.

She may have been only minutes away from losing the archer altogether over this. Timing, and instinct, are to thank.

"But he does nothing to attempt to correct those whom use such a title on him, does he. Clearly he does abhor it."

A church. Whether of his own devising or someone else's. "That would be like pouring gasoline onto a lit match," she quietly thinks aloud, quick to draw her own conclusions as always. His choice of name for this 'faith,' however..? Raven almost visibly flinches. Maybe Magneto doesn't like the title of Messiah but to found a religion with the name of the -First Mutant?- And which mutant might -that- be?

And after voicing her own observations about how he's lost track of their endgame, become absorbed within the power...

"It always sounds better in the brochure," she sourly replies with a frown now set upon her features. "This also happens to be how cults take root. Your concerns are valid, and shared. I fear what will happen for us all should he continue to pay more attention to such things rather than founding Genosha as its own nation. Perhaps the political matters have finally proven to be too much for him."

And perhaps it's time that she bump up her contingency plans.

"You are free to pursue your business in Kiev, you will not be stopped. Perhaps at this moment it would be wise to distance yourself from the situations brewing upon this island."

She's not entirely certain of what she wants to do about the situation, herself.

Mystique's reply echoes many of Olena's own thoughts. "Religion is the opiate of the people," the archer quotes -- just as she did to Magneto. She's Ukrainian. She knows Marx and Lenin. "I do not want our people drugged. I want them to stand on their own."

She doesn't speak to the political concerns. Really, Mystique wouldn't have to pump anyone in the Spire too hard for information to learn that the Imperator sleeps little, always working on matters of state. It's hardly a secret.

And the thought that Erik Lehnsherr burns the candle at both ends should come as no surprise to anyone.

Still, as the metamorph gives Olena her 'blessing', the archer suppresses a twitch at one side of her mouth. Nothing would really have stopped that, in any case, short of her own death. And while that is a very real possibility, given whom she faces, it's not a very probably possibility.

Still, she gives a simple nod of her head in response. It's polite, after all.

"I expect I will be leaving within the next day or two." Even if she goes on a world tour before she hits her homeland.

She doesn't invite Mystique to come, however. Better the Matriarch of Bastion stay here and clean up the mess. It's out of Olena's league.