The Warners' Apartment: Empowered
When he returned, Lily-Rose was already fast asleep.
Having enlisted the help of sometimes babysitter Tessa Macneil for the afternoon, Ryan had headed out to meet an old colleague from his journalism days in Ohio. With the exception of time spent with Elaina he had not possessed much of a social life since his arrival at the school and the meeting was a refreshing step back in time to happier days. He was finally settling into life at Xavier's but there were still days where he would dream of Mandy and feel the grief of loss all over again when he woke up without her. Talking with Albert about the days at the paper caused the rare occurrence of Ryan truly smiling and laughing and he forgot all about the clock and the blonde responsibility waiting for him at home. Hours passed and a patient half-fairy stayed the evening along with the afternoon.
Tessa had jumped at the opportunity to watch Lily-Rose. The child was bright and creative and thought of her as somesort of fairytale creature, begging to see her fairy wings. Although Tess was not shy about who she was she had found that wings sometimes came with stares and with questions. Since the departure of the only other fairy she had known, Tess had found something depressing about letting her wings show. Instead they remained ever present but invisible. Only when involved in a training exercise or with the child did she reveal their presence. Scott leaving had subdued the usually positive young woman and she was finding it harder to keep busy. Lily-Rose was the perfect distraction.
So she didn't mind staying the afternoon, and then she didn't mind staying the evening until finally, at ten-thirty that night, the sheepish journalism teacher returned to his apartment with an apology and a peace offering of hot chocolate. Tess had put Lily-Rose to bed an hour and a half earlier and had read to her from the second tale of Captain Jack Sparrow and his ship The Black Pearl. Her imagination in full flare, the child had gone to bed dreaming of pirates with the book lying open on her bedside table. Tess returned to her dorms and Ryan, after peering in through the slightly open bedroom door at his sleeping daughter, found himself quite exhausted and soon retired himself.
Ryan dreamt of Mandy again, this time recalling a double date with Albert and his then-girlfriend Cindy. Lily-Rose dreamt of pirates ...without any idea that she was about to bring one to life.
What Ryan’s adult mind had to work to accomplish was done effortlessly and unknowingly by his seven year old. Her imagination, belief, and youth bending the rules of a power Ryan thought he knew everything about to call forth a character from the open book beside her. Although she would not put two and two together, Lily-Rose had been the subject of Dawn’s spell and her dormant mutant abilities were exchanged with her father’s ‘storytelling’ powers. For the first time in her life Lily-Rose was special in more than just her father’s eyes as she gained an ability, unconsciously using it as she slept.
Lily was usually a sound sleeper and that applied especially when she was exhausted from a day of play and crafts with Tess. She had fallen asleep wearing her pink patterned nightgown and with a makeshift medallion around her neck. The medallion, a joint effort between fairy and girl, was made of yellow Playdoh and had been shaped with toothpick indents and fingers, a hole being made so that it could later be worn. While it would hardly have been mistaken for the real thing it had pleased the girl and been finished with gold glitter before left to harden. Now it hung around her neck on a black ribbon and some of the glitter had spread to her blankets, illuminated in the nightlight’s gentle glow.
She awoke in the middle of the night with a thirst strong enough to convince her to leave the warmth of her blankets but she had only just sat up when she saw the dark figure of something or someone in the room. “Daddy?” she questioned but as her vision, groggy from sleep, cleared she was able to tell that it was certainly not her dad. But if it wasn’t her father than who was it? Lily-Rose kicked back her covers so that she sat with her feet hanging off the side of the bed. She was at an age where she still believed in monsters in her closet and the tooth fairy and consequently her tone was coloured with both curiosity and apprehension as she asked “Who are you?” and waited for a response.
There was a blur, a confusion of images and words and memories, a strange sensation, almost painful, as if being torn from one side of a line to another in a rough match of tug-o-war. Moments of the past, present, future, all blurred in a flurry of sensations, fading so swiftly and seeming so real that for brief moments it felt as if those moments were infact happening. Which made the final moment, the very point where all sensations began to fade, seem too surreal to trust, leavng a confused pause as dark eyes scanned the even darker area around.
As the head turned, a light clink of beads in his hair faintly were heared, usually they were unheared save for in these dead quiet moments. Hands rose to be momentarily examined, turned over as if examined for a first time, and yet they were his for as long as the stranger could remember. It was hard to make anything out, hands reached out to try and aid him in exploring, and as they traced over the wall, the sensation of uncertainty swelled, though a forced calm kept it in check. Nothing seemed familiar...
“Daddy?” A pause in movement was sudden, a blank stare unseen on the stranger's face, the soft mouthing of 'daddy' unheard though it was repeated as if somehow it might make it make more sense. Quietly the head had turned towards her, soon the rest of the body followed suit as dark eyes tried to make out the figure where the young voice had come from. “Who are you?” not exactly the kind of moment that could be recalled as having happened before... though it wouldn't be the first time Jack Sparrow had awaken in the presence of a woman he couldn't recall.. and yet this was no woman, this was barely a grown child.
"Captian Jack Sparrow," He said almost defiantly, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword though making no effort to yet remove it, "And who, pray tell, are you?" Suspicious eyes glanced across the area once more, as if waiting for someone else to throw themselves at him, memories from just before here seemed hazy, difficult to pin, remember a certain point, only to remember something else shortly after that, or before, or confused entirely on which came first. Maybe he was drugged? Or maybe he hit his head... the compass! A discreet hand rested over where his compass was stored in the pouch, a silent sigh of relief inwardly given as whatever happened obviously nothing yet seemed to have been stolen from him... save he had no idea where his ship was... or his crew! How the hell did he get here?
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