Interlude- 1 -1- First meeting
Citadel Fifth Floor- Communal Room, Date unknown (Early Morning)
Nath’aniel-
“I am sorry for the early waking. But the terms are clear. One of you must sit with me. And Erik had stated that you wanted to be first, but since all of you are also charging off on a quest of redemption. I figured this morning would be better than tonight.” Nath’aniel said to the yawning Easterner.
He noticed that the purple was fading from her hair, and it was more of a shade of black naturally. Betsy had to yawned twice more before she could respond. “No, it’s ok. I understand.” Another yawn. “Contracts must be fulfilled. God I could go for a cup of coffee. How is Sam?”
“Her secondary heart has healed, while her limbs and face require more time in the solution before I can declare them healed. I am optimistic she will make a full recovery by the end of tomorrow.” He replied.
She seemed torn by the answer, but eventually said. “That’s good. Out of all of us, she the most of all, deserves some happiness… Wait. Did you say she has two hearts?”
The mage raised his eyebrows at her last statement, but waited for her to clear her head. But as she continued to yawn and might even have started to doze off, was when his patience was beginning to wane. So he offered. “Yes. Shall I cast a spell to restore your stamina?”
The woman perked up a little at the offer and responded positively. “Could you?”
Nath’aniel wrote the reverse Fortitude rune. So the spell focused on stamina rather than the meat and bone. Betsy breathed deeply as the spell took effect. After releasing the held breath she asked. “Forget coffee, could you do that for me every morning?”
“It is unhealthy to rely on magic alone.” The mage rebuffed.
The Easterner nodded in understanding. “Right, just like how we shouldn’t have more than three energy drinks in a row, but being a corporate envoy meant the changing of time zones and your duties didn’t wait for you to wake up.”
Nath’aniel tilted his head to the side as he asked. “Corporate envoy? Is corporate a new category of ruler ship?
Betsy laughed, before answering and then asked. “Is that our first topic, ruler ship?”
He shook his head and admitted. “My first desired topic was modern family units, and how they have changed over the years. But we can start with yours instead.”
She smirked, at his answer. He had to take a breath at the sight of her smile. Even if it wasn’t a full smile, it still did something to him. ‘Why does she affect me so?’ the mage wondered, ‘Even that Asgardian Princess didn’t make me feel this way. Well maybe not to the same degree.’
“Really, families! That was what you wanted to talk about?” Betsy seemed surprised but answered neither his first question nor continued to explain on the topic he offered.
‘Is she probing for more information from me?’ He wondered. Now used to her powers he could watch to see when she tried to read his mind. And she did try, but always fell back at his subconscious warnings. ‘It seems she has learned from the last time she was in my head.’
Nath’aniel decided to give her something, and it wasn’t because he found her face as pretty, and said. “Yes. My mother taught me. You must learn of a man’s motives, so you may understand your enemy’s.”
Betsy’s smile faded quickly from his answer. “And we are your enemy?”
“No.” he reassured her. “But the world might be. After all, you all formed a group that fights others because you are a minority of the Tribesmen of the Land. So I must ask myself, ‘how will they react to someone not of the land?’, am I going to be their enemy on principle alone? And as the last of my kind, I cannot risk any possible loss.”
She nodded in understanding. “Differences breeds hate. It was the one thing Charles got right.”
‘So she has met this Charles as well, their Erik has mentioned him several times already. He must be someone important in the X-gene community.’ The mage thought. Before she started a rather long winded explanation.
“Corporate is short for corporation. They are not a part of, or have say over the laws of the nations’, but rather are the leadership and guides behind large mercantile, manufacturing and other business ventures. For instance my family owned and ran Braddock Consolidated. When my father inherited it was moderately successful in the making and selling of everyday goods. Clothes, cups, silverware we made and sold a lot of items.’
“But under my father’s leadership he had the company shift part of their efforts to get into the computers and general electronics as well. A change that did well for us, and allowed us to expand and grow. It turned our lower tier company into a trusted family company that supplies people whatever they could want’
“My job, as envoy was to go to and visit other lands to either make deals to allowing our products to be sold there, or in some cases to hire other factories or researchers. To build our existing products or develop our new ones.”
As she spoke Betsy would run hand and through her long hair, almost always when she changed her train of thought. ‘Almost like it was a tic or compulsion.’ The mage thought.
“And who runs this Braddock Consolidated? Your father?” Nath’aniel asked.
Betsy shook her head before saying. “No. My father passed away when I was a child, my brother runs the company and the family estate now. But he doesn’t run it alone. There is a board, which has a set number of seats. And they are chosen from the willing people with enough stock or interest in the company. And if enough of them agree they can even overturn a decision he has made, although that rarely happens.”
‘That still sounds like a micro kingdom to me.’ He thought.
“Not that I have that job anymore.” She admitted.
“Why?” he asked out of instinct.
Betsy hesitated but eventually said. “Brain, my brother, didn’t like that I used my position as a means to reach out and recruit mutants for the Brotherhood… I also diverted some materials towards our group. I paid for them, of course. But some of these materials are restricted and not available to the public. At first, while it bothered him, he didn’t do anything about it. But when Eric’s second wife was killed, he got very angry, and sort of lashed out. And when we did missions during that time, he didn’t hold back. I think, her death really caught him by surprise.’
“So he, my brother, warned me to cut ties with him, with them. But I want his dream, my dream to be realized. A world, where I can walk out in the open and not be ashamed of how I look or who and what I am. And so, we went out on a mission, our last mission. As we were about to take off, he called me and warned me that he had... that he had, sold us out and that I was fired… but he told me, should I survive… My home would always be there for me.”
“He must really love you.” Nath’aniel observed softly.
The Easterner smiled as she agreed. “Yes.”
“I am curious, he clearly loves you and you clearly love him. So why the separation, does he not have the X-gene?” The mage asked off topic.
Betsy took a long pause to either decided, or gathers herself, before she answered. “He does. But his is different from mine, he can hide it easily. But the problem lays elsewhere. You see I take after my mother. Brain took after our father… You see our mom was father’s second wife. And so father’s staff… didn’t quite take to me. They were polite upfront, but they talked about us behind our backs, not so much about him. They mostly talked about me, and how I didn’t look British. And thus shouldn’t be there.”
Nath’aniel spoke in anger. "They are biased fools." He wasn’t sure why he was so angry. So he quickly added "But then again, maybe I am biased too, as I have much more exposure thanks to these." As he tapped his face near where his eyes were.
She started with a smile, but her slime diminished when he tapped his face. “I have so many questions about what I saw. But we can do that at another time, right?”
He nodded in agreement.
Betsy clapped her hands together before saying. “Families, right. Well I don’t think they have changed too much. There was a time where rulers got extensive harems, but that really hasn’t been a thing in recent years. But rulers of counties are kind of an exception rather than the norm. The only other really change is the causal acceptance of divorces. What once was a terrible taboo, is much more acceptable today.”
“Divorce?” the mage asked.
She answered immediately, saying. “That is the legal separating of a husband and wife.” And on and on Betsy went on talking about and explaining the various terms and labels for families and extended families. He tried to hold back any reaction from some of what she talked about as normal. Such as same sex unions, but he could tell that he did react, even subtly and she noticed it.
TFTC( ꈍᴗꈍ)
TYFR :-)