Thirty-One Decembers: #5
Dec. 5th, 2007 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
infiniteprydeFic: Thirty-One Decembers (#5)
Who: Kitty Pryde, Piotr Rasputin
Set: At the school. Cheerfully diverging from some point in Whedon's Astonishing run, as this catches us up to (and past) current canon, and I haven't caught up myself through the current arc yet.
Disclaimer: Marvel's.
"I have never seen you celebrate this holiday before," Piotr remarked.
Kitty half-opened her eyes lazily, without shifting from where she leaned against his chest, and glanced to the desk by the window where two candles still burned. "Mmh? I did here, once."
"You were much younger then." His voice was a comforting rumble. "And much more interested in cookies and ice cream than in religion."
Their position gave Kitty an excellent angle from which to elbow him in the side. He'd gotten too used to that to grunt anymore, though. "And the next year ... I can't remember if you were in space or if I was in Tokyo. We were distracted, anyway."
"There was Muir Island," Piotr mused. "You did not have it there."
"Did so. I just kept it in my room. Kept me from getting flak from Wisdom over me being allowed to burn things inside when his cigarettes got threatened with the sprinkler system."
"He did not notice?"
"I got Rahne and Douglock to cover for me. The whole deal may be about remembering a big miracle, but asking for the little ones gets better results if you do the legwork first."
"Ah," Piotr said, and fell silent.
It felt awkward; Kitty found herself half-remembering one of Shan's old girlfriends. (What had her name been, anyhow?) Except this time Kitty was the one in the foot-in-mouth role. She didn't understand; he hadn't flinched over her mentioning her ex -- "What'd I say?"
"Nothing." The assurance was steady, rather than too quick, and it mollified her. But he added a slight shrug, not enough to push her away, and said, "I do not believe in miracles, Katya. It seems strange to me that you do."
Kitty squinted up at him. "Piotr, you came back from the dead."
Another shrug, this one broader; he put an arm around her to secure her against his side. "Doesn't everyone?"
She elbowed harder. This time he grinned.
"Katya," he said then, and his words came in the slow and steady pacing that he always used when he had thought a subject through and come to a conclusion he held certain. "I do not know all of how and why I am here, but I know that it is science that did this, not the hand of some god. We have met gods, you and I; we have fought and defeated them. Every god and every demon that we know has proved, in the end, to once have been something like a man.
"A miracle, then, is no more than a science we have not yet learned. It is no more worthy of awe and reverence than is your computer; it is less worthy, in its way, because the miracle has demanded that reverence unearned, while your computer neither asks for more than it deserves nor promises more than it can perform.
"A god differs from you or I only in power, not in nature or righteousness or, all too often, even maturity. It does not deserve our time or our worship.
"And it seems strange to me that you, who are much more intelligent than I in many ways, have never thought of this for yourself."
She had no answer for that, not in words. Instead, for the sake of avoiding an argument she couldn't win, she settled quietly back against him. Perhaps it was in the same spirit that, in turn, he said nothing when she lit the candles the next night, and the night after that, and the next.
Who: Kitty Pryde, Piotr Rasputin
Set: At the school. Cheerfully diverging from some point in Whedon's Astonishing run, as this catches us up to (and past) current canon, and I haven't caught up myself through the current arc yet.
Disclaimer: Marvel's.
"I have never seen you celebrate this holiday before," Piotr remarked.
Kitty half-opened her eyes lazily, without shifting from where she leaned against his chest, and glanced to the desk by the window where two candles still burned. "Mmh? I did here, once."
"You were much younger then." His voice was a comforting rumble. "And much more interested in cookies and ice cream than in religion."
Their position gave Kitty an excellent angle from which to elbow him in the side. He'd gotten too used to that to grunt anymore, though. "And the next year ... I can't remember if you were in space or if I was in Tokyo. We were distracted, anyway."
"There was Muir Island," Piotr mused. "You did not have it there."
"Did so. I just kept it in my room. Kept me from getting flak from Wisdom over me being allowed to burn things inside when his cigarettes got threatened with the sprinkler system."
"He did not notice?"
"I got Rahne and Douglock to cover for me. The whole deal may be about remembering a big miracle, but asking for the little ones gets better results if you do the legwork first."
"Ah," Piotr said, and fell silent.
It felt awkward; Kitty found herself half-remembering one of Shan's old girlfriends. (What had her name been, anyhow?) Except this time Kitty was the one in the foot-in-mouth role. She didn't understand; he hadn't flinched over her mentioning her ex -- "What'd I say?"
"Nothing." The assurance was steady, rather than too quick, and it mollified her. But he added a slight shrug, not enough to push her away, and said, "I do not believe in miracles, Katya. It seems strange to me that you do."
Kitty squinted up at him. "Piotr, you came back from the dead."
Another shrug, this one broader; he put an arm around her to secure her against his side. "Doesn't everyone?"
She elbowed harder. This time he grinned.
"Katya," he said then, and his words came in the slow and steady pacing that he always used when he had thought a subject through and come to a conclusion he held certain. "I do not know all of how and why I am here, but I know that it is science that did this, not the hand of some god. We have met gods, you and I; we have fought and defeated them. Every god and every demon that we know has proved, in the end, to once have been something like a man.
"A miracle, then, is no more than a science we have not yet learned. It is no more worthy of awe and reverence than is your computer; it is less worthy, in its way, because the miracle has demanded that reverence unearned, while your computer neither asks for more than it deserves nor promises more than it can perform.
"A god differs from you or I only in power, not in nature or righteousness or, all too often, even maturity. It does not deserve our time or our worship.
"And it seems strange to me that you, who are much more intelligent than I in many ways, have never thought of this for yourself."
She had no answer for that, not in words. Instead, for the sake of avoiding an argument she couldn't win, she settled quietly back against him. Perhaps it was in the same spirit that, in turn, he said nothing when she lit the candles the next night, and the night after that, and the next.
