Chap. 1
"Well, all my bags are packed." Liadan announced, plopping her hands down on one cardboard box among the multitudes stacked throughout her house. Well, scratch that last; her old house.
"You're ready to go?" quipped her mom poking her head into their old living room. "I'm standing here, outside your door!" they broke into song together, releasing some of the tension and falling into weary giggles atop some boxes labeled "Gray junk".
"Ouch!" Liadan exclaimed. "Oh, screwdriver. Mom we really need a tool box."
"Yeah we do. Maybe we can get one, in New York?" He mother spoke the last word tentatively. "Mom, I know we have to move for your job, and Mr. Xavier and stuff," Liadan let out with a sigh. "But…man it sucks."
On the plane, Liadan fiddled with a deck of cards. It was one thing she could do to calm herself. "Now, now Liadan," Her mother started a reproach but a sly smile broke out onto her caring face. "I was going to tell you not to use your gift in such a public place…but…show me what you can do now,"
So with that Liadan took the top card from her deck and turned it into a silk scarf, then back so only her mother could see. "Na-hice, Baby." Was her mom's reply. "Was that an illusion? Or are you going to show me how to transform cardboard into silk?" "Just an illusion mom, I doubt there ever really is a need to make cardboard silk. I don't think I can truly transform matter, just make you think so." Her mother nodded sagely, she understood how her daughter felt. No, really, she could, as an empathy-even if she was just a level one-feel her emotions. It was one of the reasons that they were going to this school. She wanted her daughter to be in a safe place where she could be comfortable to explore her potential and where she could be a school councilor with out getting fired when people found out why she was so good at helping kids work their way through their problems.
These quite conversations on Liadan's so called 'extra-curricular' education would either leave her with a smile on her face, from the closeness she felt with her mother, or leave her fuming from the sense of alienation she felt from her peers. Her mother saw both emotions warring within her daughter and put out a hand to touch her untamed hair. "There will be more kids for you to become close to at Xavier's. You'll be able to do whatever, learn what you can do, just be yourselves…be truthful." She was trying to sooth her daughter's fears of being so different, of getting caught, or losing her true self. More than almost anything, she knew her daughter wanted to be the best that she could possibly be and she knew that that meant staying true to who she was.
Liadan refused to compromise what she was in order to fit in better. But she still knew the balance well enough to be herself at well selected times and places and to fit in with everyone when she had to.
When the plane touched down on the other side of the country (Liadan's an Oregon girl born and bred), Liadan and her mother were met by a large man dressed in a very nice black suit that looked much too formal for picking up a colleague. But Liadan noticed his oddly shaped eyes when he smiled at them, they were larger and more vivid blue than one would expect on such a man as this formidable gent. And he felt different; it was as if he almost smelled different. He's clearly some kind of fae, like me! Liadan thought as her eyes shone an unusual gray violet in happy recognition of a kindred spirit. I just know it! "Hello Gwynne, Liadan." He started with a friendly smile. "Hank!" Liadan's mother gave the stranger a warm hug. "How long has is been? One? Two hundred years?"
"Shhhh, Gwynne, you must be more careful. There could be loonies who believe in fairies here." He admonished with a chuckle, his eyes sparkling behind his glasses. But Liadan frowned. Her mother was a warm friendly person, and she obviously knew this man-even if it were two hundred years ago, though she was the one who didn't age, not her late thirties mother who was freaking about new gray hairs- but, she didn't like that her mom was so…open with a man that Liadan had never met. Yes he was 'fae', as Liadan called anyone who seemed to have a strong like to their more primal natures, but Liadan still didn't trust him as far as she could spit, and she was a very poor spit-er.
She and her mother usually kept the 'Hey we're different!' factor down in public and they kept it really down when they were around newer people. She didn't even really talk about their powers with her mutant friends who were in the loop unless it was in private. You just couldn't be too careful these days with all of the mutant haters and KKK out there.
"Oh, please do excuse me Liadan; I know we haven't been properly introduced, though I have met you. Of course you were just a toddler last I visited. And Gwynne I believe it was around fifteen, not a hundred years." He threw a teasing smile her way then turned back to the seventeen year old who didn't look as open as her mother at the moment. "I used to go to school with your mother, I'm Dr. Hank McCoy."
"It's a pleasure to meet you Dr. McCoy." Liadan replied in her automated stewardess voice. All stream-lined and cold. Yet exceedingly polite with perhaps a hint of an accent. Her eyes were hooded but her pupils dilated slightly looking for some hidden threat.