Flowers in the Wind
Rating: PG, PG-13 at most. Nothing serious goes on.
Pairing: Wind Dancer/Wallflower
I'd like to note before beginning that I haven't been with the franchise for about 10 years, and while libraries, wikipedia and UXN are helping, I'm still fuzzy on quite a bit. I'm writing this almost exclusively from info on wikipedia, because I've had the idea since HoM ended, and it keeps coming back. shrug I've had worse reasons to write.
Watching the sunset always put things in perspective for Sofia Mantega. It reminded her that to all things, there was an ending, and more often than not, it could be beautiful. The pinks and yellows in the sky played off each other, intertwining and spreading, mixing and marbling with the deeper hues of purples and reds, painting the sky an erratic rush of color splashes.
Sofia sighed. Today, the setting sun did nothing for her mood. Sofia was- operative word, was- a mutant, a human evolved into homo superior, born with an X-gene that granted them extraordinary powers. Sofia had possessed control of air movement, enabling flight and long-distance eavesdropping, among other things. She had gone by the name Wind Dancer as the field leader of the mutant school Xavier's Institute student squad known as the New Mutants, after their faculty advisor Danielle Moonstar's former team. She didn't know why, but today, her powers had just… shut off. Many of the schools members, including Miss Moonstar, had suffered the same fate. There was no word on why; most of the teachers weren't even acknowledging it, and Headmaster Summers had been locked in his office most of the day.
There were footsteps coming from behind her, the sound of boots crunching the fallen leaves that littered the mansion grounds.
"Hey, Sofia." Came the voice of a young girl. Sofia looked back and saw her roommate, Laurie Collins, codename Wallflower, holding a blue-and-white porcelain plate with two sandwiches on it, walking towards her.
"You haven't eaten all day, so I brought you a sandwich." Laurie told her, passing the plate under Sofia's face, nudging her to take it.
"I'm not hungry." Sofia replied in a mumble.
"Well, eat anyway. I can't just have you drop dead in the middle of the night, you'll stink the room all up."
Sofia chuckled lightly, picking up a sandwich. "Thanks for the overwhelming concern."
"So, what are you gonna do? I don't think they're letting the non-powered people stay. According to that one girl, what's her name, Blindfold, Miss Moonstar might have to leave 'cause Headmistress Frost doesn't want a baseline as a teacher. Eat your sandwich."
Sofia took a bite and swallowed hard as a few stray tears fell from her eyes. "I don't wanna leave, Laurie, I love this place. I hated going to school and pretending I was a regular human, and I can't do it, Laurie, I can't just go back to that now that I can't use my powers anymore. I- I don't know what to do, I don't and I'm scared, Laurie, I'm so scared…" she rushed as the tears started pouring.
Laurie threw an arm over Sofia's shoulder and Sofia leaned on her, putting he face in the nape of Laurie's neck. "With my powers gone, what good am I? I'm just another immigrant in the US, trying to fit in, and my powers, they made me special, and now I'm nothing again."
Laurie pushed Sofia off her and stared in her eyes with a palpable intensity. "You… you are far from nothing. You're one of the most courageous, opinionated, fiery-spirited people I know. You don't need powers to be special, you already are."
Sofia stopped crying with a small sniff and blinked away her tears. "You- do you really mean that?"
"With every fiber of my being." Laurie told her.
"Thanks. It means a lot that you think that of me."
"Why wouldn't I?" Laurie asked. "It's the truth."
Sofia smiled. "Hey, Laur? If I might be leaving, could I ask you a favor? You know, one last thing before I get kicked out?"
"Sure, shoot."
"Could you use your power on me? I… I always wondered what it was like, but since I had my powers, I guess I was too scared to just stop using them and feel it, but now that they're gone and all… and If you don't wanna, it's OK, too, I was just asking and you don't have to."
Laurie beamed at the South American girl. "You sure? Because if I use them on you, you won't be able to stop me if you're uncomfortable."
"It's OK. I want to do this. I don't wanna leave here without trying it out."
Laurie laughed. "You make me sound like a drug."
Sofia looked glanced at her and whispered, "Maybe, to me, you are."
"Come on, Sofe. Let's go back to the room, get some privacy." She stood up and took Sofia's hand in hers, pulling her up. "You know, Miss Sinclair told me that the original New Mutants used to come out here to get away from Professor Xavier, cause he couldn't get his wheelchair out on the grass, so he didn't even bother coming to get them after a while."
"Yeah? Miss Sinclair and Miss Moonstar have a lot of cool stories from their time as New Mutants. I hope we can have stuff like that happen to us, too." Sofia replied with a wistful voice.
"Well, one thing's for sure: tonight's going to be an interesting story."
The girls shared a laughed and walked back to the Institute, hand in hand, the sun setting behind them.