noteful | Birthday Party for Laura/X-23

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Birthday Party for Laura/X-23

It's a pretty low-key party, all things considered, and not significantly different than the one Parker or Meg would have thrown in a dorm room for a friend at home, not-exactly-traditional menu not withstanding.

There's music, low enough to talk over (and maybe with a little more folk in the mix than one expects to find a party). Balloons and streamers in purple and blue and red. A place to leave presents. People to meet or catch up with.

And, most importantly, a chance to wish X-23 (or Laura) a very happy birthday.

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"Um. Sure."

She's a good liar when her confidence is up - the rest of the time, she's really quite terrible.

"How are you?"

"Yes, I could tell." Cal is teasing just a little bit.

"I'm all right," he says. "How've you been?"

"Busy, mostly - I had to make X's present."

"Yeah?" Cal asks with interest. "What did you make?"

He just consulted the Bar. Shopping options for the Bound are limited.

The concept of buying a present seems slightly wrong to Medusa, and it isn't because she is lacking in funds.

"A jacket. Or maybe a coat, defintions are sometimes a bit hard. It's black on the outside, but on the inside it's colourful," which shouldn't be of any surprise to anyone who has seen Medusa, "and she can wear it inside out if she wants. I...hopefully she'll like it."

"That sounds really nice." Cal is impressed, and it comes through in his tone. "I just got her a couple of movies."

She cocks her head to the side like a bird.

"What are movies?"

He's not particularly surprised by the question - he's found that it can be hard to guess, what Medusa might know from from Milliways and what she's still never heard of. He'd thought she might know about movies by now, but apparently not.

He considers for a moment, trying to find terms that will be familiar to her.

"Kind of like a play," he says finally. "Only there's a way of. Uh. Copying them, I guess, sort of like books, only you watch them instead of reading them. Probably be convenient for you," he adds thoughtfully, "you wouldn't have to worry about the actors turning to stone."

A flicker of a wry smile.

"That would be useful."

"You've got kind of a wait on your world before they're invented," Cal drastically understates, "but I bet you could set something up at Milliways."

"They are played on, in, a black box?"

"Yup," Cal says. He won't confuse her by mentioning movie theaters right now. "There's another box you hook up to the black box, and you put the copy of the movie in that and it plays on the television. The black box."

"I'll ask Luce to show me how it works."

Cal nods. He vaguely remembers Sam saying something about not being great with technology - Cal had to replace his watch after they spent the night together - but that was just after a certain length of time, right?

"Bar can help you find things you'll want to watch," he says. "She helped me with X's movies."

Cal isn't really familiar enough with the Western genre to know anything beyond titles he was pretty sure X already had.

"What did you get her?"

"Um." Cal can't quite remember the titles. He also has no idea how to describe the Western genre to a woman from ancient Greek mythology.

"A movie about a cursed gu - weapon, and one about a judge who was kind of crazy. And one I watched with her once before, but it's the version from my world, so it has music. I'm kinda curious to see what she thinks."

He's willing to bet that X's reaction to his world might be a bit different from the usual one.

"So, they still have curses in the future?"

"Well. It depends on the world, I think. Not all of them have magic. Mine doesn't. But it sounds like at least some of the magic worlds do still have curses. And even the ones that don't have - uh, the idea of them, I guess," Cal explains.

"Even though they don't have working magic?"

"Yeah," Cal says. "I mean, I can't speak for every world, but on mine, magic is - a story. Something people used to believe in to explain things before science - uh. Was discovered. And people mostly know that there's no such thing, but they still tell stories about it."

Her curved eyebrows arch over her glasses.

"How strange."

Cal grins at that.

"Yeah, I guess that must sound kinda weird when your world really does have magic."

"A little. It doesn't...always work, of course, but it seems odd that there is the idea without the reality behind it. Where would they get the idea from?"

"I don't really know," Cal admits. "Uh - like a said, it was a way to explain things. That's how they came up with gods, too. I . . . don't think my world has any of those."

That's more a matter of subjective interpretation than magic is, but Cal's always held firm to that point. Growing up in a political family, with that cynical lifestyle, made it impossible to develop any kind of faith.

"So who created your world?"

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