Appellere, "drive to" or "come ashore"

by Lise

XXII: The Chapter if Giving a Mouth to the Osiris Ani, the Scribe, and Teller of the Holy Offerings Made of all the Gods

"I rise up out of the Egg in the Hidden Land. May my mouth be given unto me that I may speak therewith in the presence of the Great God, the Lord of the Tuat. Let not my hand and my arm be repulsed in the presence of the Chiefs (Tchatchau) of any god. I am Osiris, the Lord of Ra-stau. May I, the Osiris, the scribe Ani, whose word is true, have my portion with him who is on the top of the Steps (Osiris). According to the desire of my heart I have come forth from the Island of Nesersert, and I have extinguished the fire."

II.
~

FRANKLIN

*

The early morning porridge is made, the house stirring. Nate is barely awake, yawning and mumbling about the color people turn when they die in ice, something about a dream with Hank McCoy and the Hulk both telling him to calm down. I can tune him out because it's barely seven am, according to our kitchen clock, and we don't have any coffee to feed him.

I wonder what my parents would think of me now, and feel a sharp pain somewhere in my stomach. "Nate."

"Yeah?"

I stir his herbal tea, something that Ilsa said was safe to drink and something that Nate absolutely hated. "Mikhail almost opened up a portal last night." Non-committal grunt, covering up some hope. "He wanted you to see it."

"Of course he did. He wants to be absolved."

Softly, I answer, "He's just a child, Nathan."

He gulps down hot liquid, and stands. "Don't call me that in the mornings." Puts his mug down, facing west, and thumps out.

Which means it's time for Kitty to get up, and stumble sleepily into the kitchen. Don't know where Dom is, but she'll show up eventually. I actually enjoy the domesticity of our house-- I know the rest of them think I'm crazy for it, but I do.

We get the kidlets fed, and they run off to play. Kitty cleans the bathrooms, I go to check on the bar.

It's funny, but this place almost runs itself.

Everyone eventually ends up in the bar. It's why I put the piano there, and not in our cramped little house. People come to the bar to remind themselves that yes, there is life here, even if it's in close quarters and we eat buffalo meat.

We're not dead. That's what it says.

It's the same reason I play the piano, and the reason I'm playing it now. It reminds me that we're living, here, not merely existing.

Nate, Dom, and Kitty all find there way to the table next to me, some time during the afternoon. They start talking about a new well, and more ditches, and the digging. The other people around can do that; Nate, though he won't admit it, is too snobby to dig a ditch.

I tune them out-- listen to the voices and not the words. Eventually, they start talking about Irene.

"It was only an idea, okay?"

This jars me out of my mellow mood. Kitty's defensive, taking Nate on as she's been doing since Irene got here. I play softer, trying to catch their conversation.

Dom's quiet, which is strange; Nate just can't believe his ears.

When I hear what, exactly, Kitty was talking about, I really can't believe it either. Who in their right mind would try and push Irene over the edge?

~

KITTY

*

"You can't be suggesting what I think you're suggesting, Kitty."

Everyone's gathered around the piano, and Franklin is playing a slower rendition of some old jazz classic. I want to call it 'what a wonderful world', but he's not the macabre one. I sigh. "I'm not suggesting anything. I only pointed out--"

"Bullshit." Nate looks right at me. "That's bullshit, and you know it."

Nate's never been one to beat around the bush with his words, and now, with me staring into his eye, is no different. The rest of them might let me fool myself into thinking that I really wanted to help Irene, they might let me say it. With Franklin, I could get away with that kind of deception.

Nathan's never been that way.

I stare at him, and in my mind he says, <<Damned straight I won't let you lie to yourself about what you think you're doing. You know exactly what this'll do. Are you willing to do it?>>

I've seen a lot of people die in my time... but it's Remy's face, telling me that Emil and Zoe are dead, that comes back at times like these. His eyes, angry and accusing.

The exchange between us takes about three seconds. <<You don't have to ask that, do you?>>

<<--no.>>

And then Franklin says, "Kitty. We all know that this is important to-- that it's important. But, even if Irene were amenable, there's no telling whether that will work. And if it does, what it will mean."

I wonder how many different copies of the books of Destiny float around out there, stark and unrelenting in their refusal to be found. All my efforts to read the disk that contained my copies were in vain; Irene's truths were locked in her head and my memory. Nothing seemed to make any difference, and this might be a chance to change that. "All I want to do is help Irene over her muteness."

They all watch me, and my gut twists up. This is who and what I have become, I think to myself, and I have no one to blame but me. I have met Irene Adler, and she isn't the one who made me like this.

My choices.

I swallow, and add, "It might be good for her."

It was a flat-out lie.

Everyone else knew it.

~

LORNA

*

I slip into the bar, looking for dinner, and see Cable, Domino, Kitty and Franklin sitting at 'their' table. They're eating already, and I hurry to the vats of soup -- clams today, from the smell. I never liked clams.

I can hear their discussion all the way over by the food benches. Everyone in the whole place can probably hear their discussion. It's common.

"It's gotta be mental."

"It could be anything, Franklin."

"No, I've tried every trick I know as far as the physical stuff goes. She shouldn't be mute." He turns towards Irene suddenly. "You can hear me, can't you?"

She nods. "See?" He continues. "I don't know what to do."

I try to decide whether to sit with Kitty, who left a seat open and it motioning me over, or go back out to the garden with my bowl. The old woman is sitting beside her, looking very uncomfortable.

Rashly, I slide into the seat beside Kitty. The others ignore me, but the old woman they called Irene smiles. I listen to them, and play with my soup.

"You want to try and recreate something that may or may not have happened over -- loosely speaking -- fifty years ago, with someone who may or may not have the same mutant powers as Irene Adler. Who was a doubtful prophetess, at best, because no one really understood her until it was too late." Domino pauses to gulp. I notice she throws the liquid -- fake coffee -- down with a lot more force than necessary. Aggressive, Domino is. She continues, "The fate of all prophets, Kitty-- and you want to create one?"

Kitty's answer is dry. "That was a mouthful, Dom."

Nate jumps in with, "And who knows what the shifts might do to a seer? We don't know what kind of energy a clairvoyant taps into, and whether it's even around anymore."

Franklin and I watch the verbal argument like a three-way tennis match. It's a familiar scene. Normally I prefer to be much farther away from things than this. I shrink down in my chair.

Irene turns to me, and squeezes my arm gently, with a gentle smile. Her hands start to sign, and I shrug. I don't understand her. She smiles apologetically, and stops, patting my arm instead.

It's a kind thing to do. She seems a kind woman.

She doesn't deserve what they're suggesting for her.

The four of them keep arguing about her, as if she's wallpaper. I whisper to the woman, "Do you want some more soup?"

She nods. I give her my bowl. I'm not very hungry.

~

NATE

*

Dinner time comes and goes, and we're still tossing about the idea of Irene and a diary and, it seems like I'm the only one who remembers we have real things to deal with, but hey, that's fine, that's dandy.

This is madness.

"Kitty, if you try that..."

We're already through half a bottle, and more's on the way, but I'm not nearly drunk enough to be this crazy. Neither's Dom, who's shaking her head and looking absolutely disbelieving.

The bar's dark, and most of the other patrons are avoiding us while drinking themselves into a stupor, like most nights. We could be yelling about the earthquakes coming, burning bushes, and they'd just keep drinking.

Which is, actually, a survival philosophy that's worked more times than I can count.

"It was just an idea. Might help her speak."

She's defensive, like everyone didn't know that she's been getting her panties in a twist over Irene ever since she got here. Kitty's gotten so used to the idea of Irene Adler being a legend, she can't face up to the reality of the woman.

"Bullshit, Kitty."

She argues with me. Domino's amused-- she's not drinking tonight, which would make the rest of us a lot more amusing, for sure. Lorna, wonder of wonders, is sitting with us, and hiding behind Kitty.

Franklin doesn't like it, though he'd never say so.

The bottle empties slowly. Eventually, I say loudly, "Fine. Let's try your idea, Kitty."

"What, right now?"

"Sure, why not right now. Let's go to the house, and try to create a legend." I turn to Irene. "That is, of course, you don't have any objections."

She shakes her head, uncertainly, and I notice wrinkles where there weren't any before. She's frowning, but I don't think she could object if she wanted to. Not faced with Kitty's optimism, and the possibility of speech.

Kitty's seeing paper as salvation. We get to the house as a troupe, and I go upstairs to my stash of notebooks. An old one, with maybe twenty pages left, should do for this experiment. It's bound to fail.

Give Irene the book and a pencil, and she looks at me, as if I know what to do with it. We're all gathered around the kitchen table. "I don't fucking know."

I christen it by tapping on the cover twice, and then open it in front of her. "Go on, then. Predict things."

My words are slurring. Her face is hard to read. If I'd been less drunk, I probably would have realized she was scared.

~

DOMINO

*

I'm staring at a bunch of idiots, here.

Irene has a pencil in her hand, and looks lost. Kitty is expectant, Franklin, wary. Nate's translating her signing for us, again-- he's forgotten that we're not all mind-readers.

She hesitates, and puts the pencil down.

<<What should I do?>>

Franklin looks at us all, and puts in, "Well, normally you would write the date first..."

Irene raises an eyebrow. <<And that is?>>

"Day two thousand, six hundred, and eighty four post-Oasis." Kitty blinks, and looks a little sheepish. "For me."

Franklin says, "Day three, for you, Irene."

<<And then?>>

I say, "Tuesday."

<<What?>>

Now they're looking at me like I'm the idiot. I say sharply, "It just, feels like a Tuesday."

I feel the nausea in my stomach well up; clutch at my belly. Kitty glances at me-- she knows something's wrong. I'm going to have to confess soon.

Can't hide a baby forever.

Irene asks, <<All right. Now what?>>

Kitty grins. "The first diary I kept was right before I joined the X-men. I always used to say, 'Dear Diary,' and explain my day in detail. God, I even wrote down what I had for breakfast."

<<I --can do that. I suppose.>>

She starts to write [Dear Diary,] and pauses. <<I feel rather foolish. Doing this at my age.>>

"Some people at your age do this for fun."

Nate says, "Hey!"

He recognises the subtle jab at his Oasis-chronicles, even if Irene doesn't. She continues, [Today is day four of my time at the Oasis, and it seems--]

The pencil cants, and Irene starts to stare off into space. Kitty waves a hand in front of her face, but it does no good. "What's wrong?"

Irene clutches her head, and moans-- one of the first noises I've ever heard out of the woman. She stares, clawing at her throat and whimpering, for a minute or two, and then begins to sign. Kitty, after a minute or two, picks up the pencil and starts scrawling madly.

I can't believe it, but she starts to mumble, as well. I can't fucking believe it-- I'm the only once close enough to hear her.

The first words out of her mouth and onto the page are, 'and they will know his face, for he is father, brother, leader, friend. And the Nameless one will howl, and he will eat him, swallow him up whole.'

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