Jaxon was having trouble adjusting to the changes in the Sanctuary. People were gone, new people in their place, and no one would tell her what had happened. After all that had happened since she left abruptly, then Romania, she needed some peace and some reflection.

She had tried her room, but she was tired of being a hermit and her keyboard just wasn't striking the right notes she wanted. Not enough resonance in her chest. So she went in search of a full size piano. She had tried the rec-room. Too noisy and too many people walking by. It hadn't been working for her and there wasn't a piano.

So she ended up in the Sanctuary's Cathedral. She had never been particularly religious, but Jax always found churches to be peaceful when they were empty. It was beautiful of course; but isn't that the point, to make it place of beauty to commune with god? And there was a large piano. It was more of an organ, but it would serve the same purpose. She wanted to feel the music, not just hear it, and the monster in here would accomplish the chest rattling she was after. Strange as it sounded, she needed to cry. She hadn't cried since the camps. She wasn't planning to commune with god, instead she needed to commune with herself

Jax wandered in, marveling at the beauty of this church, which seemed to be only for residents. After making sure she was alone inside, she moved to the bench in front of the instrument. Sitting slowly, she slid her hand over the finish before opening the keys. She was almost hesitant, a long pause before her fingers slowly touched the keys, at first too light to even trigger a sound, then with a slow push her fingers depressed the keys and slid up, a heavy tone coming from each one. Jax almost laughed at how silly she was, the vibration under her feet telling her that once she started to play, the sound would travel through her as well.

A song struck her as being particularly appropriate for this place and time and she hummed the first few bars before settling her hands against the keys with more confidence. Warming up slowly, stretching her fingers with simple plays across the board, she started the beginning of the song with just the piano. She messed up and started again.

Slowly and softly, she began a song.

"Do you dream, that the world will know your name;
So tell me your name.
Do you care, about all the little things or anything at all?
I wanna feel, all the chemicals inside, I wanna feel.
I want a sunburn, just to know that I'm alive…
To know I'm alive."





((Song is"Angels on the Moon" by Thriving Ivory.

Aura walked into the sanctuary after a harsh round of teaching a few new residents the ways of the local neighborhood. Aura enjoyed her job, true it was not the sheer violence she drifted to on her own, but they were her orders and she understood that the humans could be far more importent alive, some of them anyway, she thought to herself as she ran a finger over a rather large stack of green bills. Walking over to lisa's desk Aura set the wad of cash down, reaching into her briefcase, she pulled out another disorganized wad of cash, as well as a small white note, with three names on it.

Aura had no idea if the cash totals were right half the time, but the people she sold insurance to, were useually very scared of her. The drug dealers had been the worst however, already Aura had been ambushed three times in homes, she had taken to keeping her Aura up all the time when doing her job. She knew she would likely be dead sooner or later but was in no rush to check out quite yet.

Aura walked past the desk and heard in organ start to play from the cathedral, an unusual occurrence in that Aura had never heard the thing played before. Curiosity gripping her, she walked quietly into the room where she had spent the least time in her stay. Leaning against the inside wall of the room, Aura smiled as she sighted jaxon at the organ. It had been some time since she had seen the woman, in fact the last time Aura could recall they had not actually met, the demon girl's friends had helped her, atleast she had assumed it was her, based on not knowing any other mutants with that kinda power.

Aura could not relate well to the lyrics still she enjoyed Jaxon's singing and kept quite so she could continue. Closing her eyes she recalled her fight with jaxon's creature and considered again how interesting it would be to knock one of jaxon's creatures around, but let the idea flow away as she had tried that before. Jaxon also seemed to have musical talent, something aura lacked almost entirely, Aura could play no instruments, and had never bothered to sing.

((OOC: sorry this took so long, I had a paper due... *sheepish*))

Slowly the song built until she could hear the echo bounce lightly around the room, her fingers hitting the keys with more confidence and speed, pausing before reaching the regular tempo of the song.

"Don't tell me if I'm dying, cause I don't wanna know.
If I can't see the sun, maybe I should go.
Don't wake me cause I'm dreaming, of angels on the moon,
Where everyone you know, never leaves too soon."

Jaxon's eyes filled with unshed tears, not yet ready for them to fall and with a sniffle, she held them back, focusing on the keys. Even though she needed to cry, and she knew it, it didn't mean she wanted to. Thinking of Romania- the camps, the escape, the red brothers… how cold and dark it had been when she had laid in the snow… Jax didn't want to think about that.

"Do you believe, in the day that you were born
Tell me do you believe?
Do you know, that everyday's the first of the rest of your life."

But some things, once thought, couldn't be shoved to the back again. She had thought she would sob, cry in angry bursts of sound, that she would rage against the world. That was how she had cried when she found out she was a mutant…. When she learned she was adopted. But this was different. Jaxon felt like she was deflating, slowly leaking from her eyes. Her voice wavered.

"Don't tell me if I'm dying, cause I don't wanna know
If I can't see the sun, maybe I should go
Don't wake me cause I'm dreaming, of angels on the moon
Where everyone you know, never leaves too soon"

Slow tracks formed down Jaxon's face, and despite the heavy weight of sadness that filled her head making it throb, the rest of her felt lighter and more relaxed. Thinking about how other people would handle this she almost laughed. Her mother would go to therapy, and her father would work. Jaxon could easily imagine the conversation where she told the therapist about it, and was tempted, just to see the facial expression she would get in response. Her friends would drink and who knew what other self medication they did… or break something. That was more like what she would do if she were angry, not sad. Sad probably wasn't even the right word.

I died… sort of… and all I feel is sad? Even as she thought it, she knew there was more to it, but there probably weren’t words for that kind of thing. As if naming the pain would make it more real and make it hurt more. Jaxon sniffled again as a salty droplet hit her shirt.

Aura closed her eyes, the room reminded her of so much. Other then Sanctuary Aura could noit recall ever being in a church for their intended purpose. Instead it reminded her of the old days, the chanting, the songs, the scripture Miracle had preached. It had left a strong impression in her, gave her purpose and strength, a direction to go in life. Their had been no actual church, instead their entire base and felt much like this place did in fleeting moments.

Still she avoided the church for the most part, the memories of the place were painful recalling the people she had lost. Somehow this place brought all that to the surface of her memories, more so their final day together, she was still unsure how she had been missed by the assault squad when everyone else had ben found and disposed of. SHe could still hear and smell the gunfire in the air and hear the screams on the wind. Still she had found sanctuary and above all that was what mattered, she had a new family now, a new home and new allies and so far she had not had to fight any of those allies.

Aura kept quite and but began walking slowly down the center isle. Aura was oblivious to her friends sadness, both because she had her back turned to her and because it was not an emotion aura displayed much. Finally making the last set of seats aura slipped into one near the piano. "Hey demon lady, how are ya?" Aura asked somewhat cheerfully having forced her own bad memories to the recesses of her mind again.. She had actually missed jaxson and was quite happy to be able to see her again.

Not wanting to break her momentum, Jax didn’t wipe her face, and instead kept playing until a voice interrupted her.

This is to one last day in the shadows
And to know a brother's love
This is to New York City angels
And the rivers of our bl-..

Startled by the sudden sound of another person, Jaxon’s hands hit the keys in a moment of discordant sound, before resting heavily. A quick glance out the side of her eye, and the recognition of the voice and what it had said, she ducked her face and quickly scrubbed her tears with the sleeve of her shirt. “Aura… Hey. Long time no see, huh?”

Satisfied that the tears were gone, and knowing that there was no way she could get rid of the redness that was surely ringing her eyes and tinting her face, Jaxon turned to face the other girl with a bit of trepidation. She had been caught crying, but didn’t plan to keep doing so in front of an audience. Hopefully it wouldn’t be noticed. And hopefully Jax could prevent becoming a spigot in front of Aura.

”I’ve been…” fine ”crappy. But you know, that happens.” Jaxon shrugged, as if trying to negate what she had just said, and quickly moved on. “How about you?” The other girl looked alright, much like everyone else Jax had seen, people she had known before. Some of them were changed but for the most part everyone looked fine, only as if Jax was seeing them differently.

((OOC: I have no explanation for why this took so long and I'm sorry. I don't know what happened but I woke up and it was Monday... No idea what happened to the weekend.))

"I am all right, the false memories have abated for the most part as of late, still they have gotten stronger" she admitted. In truth the loss of her mental faculties worried her deeply. A strange concept that a memory could be a strong enough to blind one to reality. Still for the most part they had stopped and she was doing well, which turned her mind to much more important matters, like her friend. Her fingers gripped the front of the seat a bit hard.

"Is their any way i can help?" Aura said her aura faintly flaring up around her as she did "We can fix whatever the issue may be" she said, her voice taking a determined tone. Aura cared deeply for those she considered friends and had done many things to help them that had only put her higher on the shoot to kill list. From robbing banks to raiding prisons Aura had done so in a flurry of blood and violence.

Aura looked down as she heard the polished wood crack under her fingers, leting it go she looked nack to her freind. "Theirs times in this room, i can still hear the constent gunfire and the screams all echoed in the sermans of our leader, my first leader." she said before moving on. "So what are your plans my friend, i will help if i am needed" she said her quick change of subject more from fleeting thoughts then anything.

Aura's mention of false memories worried her, and Jaxon had to look at her with some confusion and worry. But the other girl seemed to not be concerned with it. She made a note to ask Aura about it later. Though separated by a few feet and a pew, Jax could feel that the other girl was concerned for her.

At her first question Jax shook her head. "I don't think so. It… what happened is in the past. It is over, I guess. But I don't feel like it is over. I feel like it's in me. It can't be fixed- it has to be…" She shrugged. Jax needed to deal with what had happened and decide what she wanted out of her life.

"I think part of my problem is that…" Jax hesitated. "I still haven't come to terms with being a mutant. I'm not used to people hating me." If anything Jaxon was used to people treating her with respect and niceties. Maybe that was selfish, but she had been straddling the fence ever since she found out. She had a nice life out in the world. And then to be in the camps where she didn't get to be human once in a while…

Jaxon knew Aura had a strange past, but every time the other girl revealed something new it took Jax by surprise. Aura somehow managed to make it through everything she had lived. Jax took strength from that. Looking around following Aura's gaze, Jax didn't understand how someone could do such terrible things in a place as beautiful as this. Forget traditional religion, it was about beauty and art.

Aura didn't seem to want to talk about it, and Jax wasn't sure what to say, so when Aura skipped ahead and asked another question, Jax crossed her arms on the piano and laid her head own looking at her friend. There was a long moment when se thought about it. "I don't know. I feel like I can't live happily with myself split in half. Maybe that's what I need to do, kill the other half. But then I have to decide which me I want to be…" She sighed, feeling very convoluted and knowing her words probably were not making a huge amount of sense.

"The past....sometimes slips through our fingers when we wish to save it and clings to us when we like to do nothing but forget. I think i see your issue though, when people saw you and seen a human they loved you, when they they treated you as a mutant they despised you. My parents acted in much the same way, leaving me to rot once my powers emerged" she said a flash of anger crossing her eyes as she mentioned her parents. She barely even recalled them and their faces were only a blur of vague features. Her only memory of them being watching them let her be taken away.

"Killing ones self or others is just running, it stops working after so long and In the end you must be you, you are a mutant and as far as i can see healthy. Find your goal and craft everything to that end. I wish i could offer more advise then that, but i was informed of my task in life when i was rescued. " Aura said as if it were simple and in her eyes it was, or at least it seemed like it should be. In truth her own methods were not helping the matter much with herself anymore and she knew Jaxon had a much different personality.

"I.....I...This maybe the wrong time, But can i ask about your childhood, how you grew up before you knew you were blessed. It's always bothered me i have no memory past a few years ago and even then.....i have always been curious what a normal childhood was" she said knowing full well her own upbringing by miracle was far from normal. In fact that was part of why she asked, she was curious on how she might have turned out had she been brought up in the arms of loving parents.

From what Aura recalled of what Jaxon's past it was normal and nice until that point, but if she had heard much more then that, she did not recall it. Aura was hoping the topic change might help jaxon relax, and maybe herself as well. Looking around she was a bit disappointed not see her pet running by, it was likely eating something or out for the night. Other ideas went through her head, jaxon had money or acess to it aura beleived, jaxon just might be able to help her with a few things she had been looking for.

Jaxon couldn't help nodding along with Aura's statement. The probably wasn't a person in the world who hadn't lost something to the past or had it damage their present. Aura briefly seemed to react to her own words but only for a moment before she continued speaking. Jax didn't know how to respond, she had not experienced that kind of abandonment, at least not consciously, and though she was angry with her parents for certain things, at least she still had parents that she knew loved her.

Jaxon disagreed with the other girl's assesment. Aura didn't understand, and it was doubtful anyone else here would. Jax wasn't just torn between the past and the present… and the future if she were to be honest with herself… she was two different people, living two different lives, and she barely had time to keep up with one. She wasn't running from anything; she was running in two opposite directions and was had reached the point when she had to choose. Jaxon was too young and too emotional to figure out how to reconcile and integrate both into a cohesive unit; she thought that the only solution was to live just one life and the only way she could think to do that was to get rid of the other one.

Aura's sudden change of subject brought Jaxon's head up to look at her again. My childhood? She gave a self mocking little chuff of breath, barely audible, and quirked her mouth as she spoke. " I wouldn't exactly call my childhood normal." Private schools, business training, summers abroad, ballet/piano/etiquette/debutante classes, shopping sprees, charity events, famous friends, paparazzi… But compared to Aura? It probably was. "I don't know Aura… if you want to know about normal people you should probably watch a TV sitcom or something."

Jaxon shrugged. She didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable and invariably, whenever she talked about her life with people who weren’t raised in a similar lifestyle, someone got uncomfortable. Either whoever she was talking to didn't understand, got jealous, blamed her for their own childhood, or they made Jax uncomfortable. It could be a very awkward situation. But Aura was her friend, so… "If you really want to know I'll tell you but… my life has been blessed by more than just my powers." Jax wasn't sure she liked the term blessed, but was the best thing for this situation to just let it go.

"You maybe right, but i don't really watch much TV" she admitted and maybe that was why she did not quite understand how other people grew up. STill it was at times hard to justify sitting down and doing nothing when she could be meeting other mutants or training for when she was needed. "I feel bad when i watch TV as their are so many more things i could be doing to help our people" she said voiceing her thoughts aloud.

"I admit i am curious but if you do not wish to speak of it i can understand, the past can be a hard thing" she aaid even though the girl said her life had been blessed aura knew many mutants who felt bad telling their stories of their past either because they figured others had it worse or because they simply did not wish to talk of it. "Im not quite sure im being helpful" she said confessing her worry that her words meant to comfort were missing the mark.

"ALl of our lifes have been blessed by more then our powers my friend. My own for example forged me into the person i am, it may not have been fun and it did have a lot or sorrow, but i learned much from it as well. Such as to always obey orders of those one works for, no matter what those orders happon to be" she said honestly and openly.

Jaxon shrugged. She didn’t feel any particular way about television, she didn’t love it or hate it, but she did use it. Jax liked to have a tv on when she was doing things, otherwise it felt too quiet and she couldn’t focus, she needed that background white noise in order to ignore distractions. For her tv wasn’t an exclusive activity. “Well, if you look at it as learning something, then it isn’t a waste of time…”

Jax let her fingers move slowly over the keys of the piano/organ in front of her. “I don’t mind telling you, but you will have to be more specific with your questions.” She chuckled, “I don’t know where my life is normal or not. It always felt normal because I was raised that way, you know?”

Aura always seemed to say things that Jaxon wasn’t sure she wanted to hear, and the other girl didn’t disappoint today. Jax had to focus on not letting her mouth drop open at Aura’s ideas about taking orders. She hesitated, she didn’t like to argue or upset her friends, so she tried to speak gently and not confrontationally. “I am not sure it is a good idea to blindly obey orders, Aura. I think you are too smart to just be a minion or a grunt. I mean, if I obeyed all the orders I was given, I would probably be going to business school to be some high powered executive, or in some mutant facility while my parents tried to help me.”

"I suppose that true" she said considering the idea. "I guess living so long with no TV and newspapers makes you forget they can be sueful and that was how we knew pred head had gone to that prison we broke him out of" she said aloud, realizing she likely should have kept that to herself. It was to late for that though and Aura chose to just keep going. "I wonder if they sells swords" aura thought as she considered the TV, not realizing it wa snot quite the Internet.

"That may be true, i don't really have specific questions though" Aura said not really sure what to ask at all. She had just expected a general run down. She decided this might eb a subject to come back to after she gave it more thought. "Perhaps i should think about it more then, as im not sure what i want to know." she said with shrug thinking about the question and still trying to figure out a more spaciffic question.

"If i had followed orders, my friends would not have died. It was my fault, i disobeyed my orders and a hours later everyone was dead. In the woods, we were trained to always follow an order, even if you disagreed with it. When a member of our team was wounded and we would not be able to get them back to camp, we were trained to kill them to prevent capture, but i was weak and could not kill my new ward, Sayr. They captured him and got our location from his screams. When i woke, my best friends arm was on top of me, her body i never found." she said clearly upset over the situation, Aura had long blamed herself for the event. "When i failed my orders the last time at KP, Syn died. If i disobey my orders, more friends will die" she said firmly, the concept of disobeying an order was very disturbing to her. "Plus if i fight and obey my orders then others will not have to die" she said to her friend quite convinced if she failed or disobeyed her orders more of her freinds and even her new family might die. "if i had just obeyed my orders they would all be alive now, this is why i come to this room to repent for my failures" she went on.

Jaxon blinked. Pred head? Broke him out of prison? Who sells swords? What had the sanctuary residents been up to lately? “Who is Pred Head?” Jax decided that was a better question and to just leave the other ones alone.

She shrugged, “When ever you want to know something you can ask anytime.”

Aura’s story was not a good one. Much like many of the stories Jax had heard from other mutants, it wasn’t good. But she still didn’t agree with Aura’s conclusion. “Um… Aura, please don’t take this the wrong way… But, there are an infinite number of possible outcomes based on the smallest actions.” Standing up, Jax moved to the pew with Aura, sitting down with a thump, and leaning against the back in way that seemed weary of the world.

“Can you know for sure that if you had obeyed orders, they would still be alive? I mean… how do you know that the previous orders that you did obey didn’t lead to the situation where they were in danger? And what about the people who gave you those orders; don’t they have some responsibility for what happened? They put you in those situations, they put your friends in those places…” Jaxon sighed. She didn’t want to preach or argue, but she could tell that Aura felt like her actions caused all that.

In a tone meant to be comforting, not confrontational, she spoke again somewhat hesitantly. “If you obey an order to kill a friend, or you disobey orders and a friend dies… either way you lose them.”

Lightly she picked at the fabric of her pants, adding, “And, anyway, how many people want to be friends with someone who would kill them if they were told to…?”

"Pred-head was a mutant i knew who could turn into a dog lion creature. He was a very good friend, the kind who i could trust my back to although i have not seen him in quite some time. It is sad, i hope he is all right and did not get captured again. I shiver to think what the humans might do to him." she said though it was a fear she had with all humans. Humans were not fun to be captured by, she knew, she ahd done it once.

"After the incident my friends died in, i was lost, i did not know what to do, i could not recall what my family looked like, my real name or age or even what my old house looked like, though since my parents were human i suppose it's best that way" she said before tilting her head and moving on. I spent days keeping out of sight of the patrols that realized they had missed a body. A week later i found Sayr. He told me everything, how they had captured him, denied him food, water and sleep and tortured him untill he told them everything. He had told them exactly when our guard would be the weakest and where we slept. He cried when i told him half of us died in our sleep and claimed he had no choice" Aura closed her eyes, but she shaking in anger from the memory.

"I told him their was always a choice and that death was the better option over betrayel of one's friends and more so their loyelty and their orders. I was so angry i struck him down before he could say more, pushed him from the same cliff my master died on. "Had i killed him the rest of my friends woul dhave lived at least a littile longer, we were soilders, we all knew we would die, even today it's not like i believe i will ever see the mutant utopis i desire" she said convinced she would die before it ever happened.

"Yes, having to fight a freind is always sad, but if we do not then more might die. AT KP for example, my best friend tried to stop me, because the haywire drug was terrable. I knew this but i had been ordered to let no one in the building and because we were so outnumbers i very nearly killed her. I am glad i failed but i failed my orders again and because of that Syn was killed. " she said, her aura breaking more of the bench as it formed a saw and chewed threw it. "Some of us are meant to lead, some of us are em ant to be troops and some are emant to be doctors or other things, what can we do aaginst fate?" she went on her anger quickly subsiding.

"We have to eb able to separate work and pleasure. Orders are work, i tried to kill Kasumi on orders, but that does not mean i would not hang out with her or go to sinner with her tomorrow. People just have to know how to separate those two things" she said with a shrug feeling she may have missed jaxons point."People may wish not to be friends with me over it and that is sad, but i am fighting for them as well as the children who come after us, i will die on the battlefield sooner or later but i will fall knowing i did it for our people" she said not realizeing she had staryed from the point.

The description that Aura gave of Pred-Head seemed familiar. “I think I saw him once…” At a circus, somewhere… She had seen him, one of the times her powers had gotten out of control.

Then thing got a little…. Strange. Aura was visibly upset as she retold stories of her past. Jaxon shifted away as the other girl’s powers acted on the bench they were sitting on, wondering if she should stop her. But Aura seemed to calm herself after a bit and Jax was left feeling uncomfortable. These were upsetting stories, and though she couldn’t relate or agree, she could see how Aura came to her conclusions.

But Jaxon still believed they were the wrong conclusions. She shook her head but didn’t say anything. What could she say? So instead she leaned back against the pew again, trying to not say the things going through her mind. But sorting through Aura’s issues had helped Jaxon reform ideas about her own problems.

She needed to think. “Aura… I can’t agree with you, but it is your life.” With a sigh, Jaxon glanced at the slim watch on her wrist. She had been in the chapel for nearly an hour now. It was time to get moving and making plans. She had a lot to think about. “I know what I want to see when I look back at my life. I have to go get started on that, so…”

Jax stood, hesitating as her eyes traveled over the other girl and the damage done to the pew. Her fingers picked at the wood grain for a moment before she spoke again. “I hope… I hope you end up with what you want.” But I wish you would try to be happy… for yourself.