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Xuyen Kieu Manh makes tea in the mornings. She waits, walks in and out of the kitchen until she hears it boil. She taps her spoon on the edge of the cup twice after she mixes it, and rinses it in the sink.
She decides not to think about the bad things, and wonders when she got the time to have the time for that choice. She supposes she didn’t notice it somewhere along the way, between when she took on too much responsibility and the days when the weights were lifted from her shoulders. It wasn’t a relief, it was slow. Stones taken away one by one, until the moment she realized she was no longer bowed over.
Without them, Xuyen wasn’t quite sure how she should walk. What is a woman who has lived in a constant state of motion to do when she’s given a home in paradise? She had reverse motion sickness - that feeling when you’re so used to the waves that walking on land feels shaky and strange. God, she hates boats.
Still, she keeps busy, she finds things to do. Krakoa was another force pushing her around the world, but just like with the rest, there are still little pieces she can control. The universe may not know the difference, but being slowed, not stagnant, means everything to her.
At the moment, these little pieces are actually sort of big, depending on how much you care about library sciences. Setting up a library for an entire island is a lot of work, but she’s determined not to let all the resources she finally has go to waste.
Today she walks to the shore to pick up a shipment. Her sweater is light, falling below her shoulders and stopping at the tops of her thighs; it never really gets cold on Krakoa. Walking there is so green - she’ll never get used to it after years in the city - and even the ground feels strange and bouncy and alive in itself.
This batch only has a few books, enough for her to carry on one trip. That's good, because the harbor is a longer walk away than she would've preferred, and book carts do not take well to Krakoan geography.
She goes back to the open, bright building they gave her for her project, carrying a frankly quite strange combination of books. Who on earth keeps Spanish dictionaries with wine studies textbooks? Well, the White Queen, if the 'Frost Collection' sticker on the box is any thing to go off of. But really, the donations are fantastic, she never thought she'd be able to get her hands on some of these first editions (Or know so much about Monet St. Croix - the things you learn from someone’s taste in novels).
Of course, it isn't just her, the others pitch in. On days when the books come in big wooden boxes instead piles, a telekinetic will stop by to take one, and someone with physical powers will take two just to prove they can (yes, she means Berto). She supposes that getting a teleporter or two could make this a great deal easier, but they're all in space, or something.
Most days she spends working on computer systems with Sage, getting David's help with categorizing, translating with Doug when he isn't too busy. Really, she likes it; she's grateful and knows she’s being useful and finishes by noon.
At lunchtime she has coffee. She puts ice in it, and she shakes it, covering the top of the glass with her hand. She eats with everyone, it's comforting. she doesn't know why, but it is. Things like that just are.
Exactly who ‘everyone’ is changes day-to-day, depending on who’s popping by, and who's busy, and who's dead at the moment. But all of their faces grow familiar.
In the afternoon she walks with Dani - sometimes Rahne or Illyana or Ororo or Roberto or someone will tag along. More often than not, they'll end up picking people up along the way, it is a small island (but it's really not, there’s so much going on that she known nothing about and so, so many people).
They pass James and Marie-Ange, and insults are exchanged about the fashion merits of magenta and mustard yellow. Xuyen asks Dani if she’s spoken to Stevie recently, and has it really been since Kitty's botched wedding? (No one really calls her Kate). They'd have to go see her sometime, invite her over, make sure it doesn't violate some weird international law, she’s a congresswoman now, isn't that crazy?
Today, it's late afternoon, they’re sitting on rocks where they can hear the water and see the vines in the trees; Dani reaches over and flips Xuyen's hair into her face and she rolls her eyes, then looks at her laughing. Dani grabs her face in her hands and kisses her, until she pulls away beaming and they both laugh some more.
They don't really talk about it, because really, what is there to talk about? Everyone already looks between them at dinner and manages to connect the dots themselves; their teasing knowing looks are more than enough confirmation.
Speaking of, dinner is with everyone too - that same everyone, but it's bigger. Here, there are little kids running around (no one's quite sure who's responsible for them) and they sit around a big round table and they're inside for this meal and the light is orangey-yellow and warm. They take turns cooking, and some meals go significantly better than others, or, more precisely, Tabitha should never be allowed to use a kitchen.
After dinner everything calms down, people disperse and the chatter dissolves into small conversations in front of tv screens. Xuyen's one of the people who always stays for those, watching movies she doesn't really care about and leaning on the arm of the couch, half stretched over someone else’s legs.
When the credits are playing and there’s snoring coming from the armchair across the room, she says her goodnights and walks back to her bedroom.
She takes off her prosthetic, undoing the clips and hooks, and places it by her bedside table. The bathroom is across the hall, so it's a short ways on her crutches.
Xuyen sits in the shower, leaning forward on the bench to put her face in the water, eyes shut, hair soaking. Her shampoo smells like lavender, and she watches the foam on her hands dissolve in the water.
She gets out, she washes her face with cool water and pats it dry, one side at a time. She brushes her teeth, and thinks about how the glass of water in her room will taste like spearmint when she drinks it.
When she’s back in her room, she sits in front of her mirror. She brushes through her hair with a long flat brush, and feels it on the back of her neck, nearly but not quite dry.
She checks on Leong and Nga, maybe too much. Once for bedtime, once for goodnights, twice after they've fallen asleep.
Only after that does she fall asleep herself, laying on her side with a book leaning open on her hand, in the soft light of the lamp she’s left on.