Title: Epiphany

Theme: Creature

At first, she had been frightened.

For someone who balked so quickly at prejudice, she was perhaps the most prejudiced within her own community, not sure how to deal with those with physical differences from humans.

It took her a while for her to become completely comfortable, but she remembered the true epiphany, the point where she understood it all. Kurt became her friend, perhaps her closest friend, yet he had one of the strangest physical deformities she'd ever seen. Blue skin, a tail, and even three fingers. He was, in the eyes of many people, a demon, deformed, even in the eyes of mutants.

Perhaps that's what she had thought as well, feeling too young to be in the situation she was, and needing guidance. She couldn't go to Logan for this, no, he'd just tell her to buck up and accept the situation. Deciding to go on a walk around the Mansion, just to let her fears dissipate and go away, she stopped by his open door. He was counting the rosary, and she found herself just watching, amazed for a moment at the blatant display of religion.

There weren't that many people who openly showed their religion in the mansion, almost as if it was a taboo subject. Perhaps the only person she had heard discuss their religious belief beyond Logan's moaning was Kurt. Eventually, he put the rosary down, saying a couple of Hail Marys before he noticed the girl standing at his doorway. He was Catholic; she was Jewish, but she could relate to his pious nature.

In his thick, German accent and slightly broken English, he asked, "You're that Katarine girl, right?"

She just nodded, ashamed at having watched him for so long without telling him. At his beckoning, she entered, crossing her ankles. He seemed kind, human, though, and she seemed able to relate to him.

She sat down, her heart beating hard, her necklace held tight in her hand. "I don't know who to talk to," she said, smiling softly. "And I saw you..."

He nodded, looking over at his rosary for a second then pointed to her hand. "Don't lose your faith," he said.

She found it an odd comment, from a Catholic to a Jew, and she stared at him in puzzlement.

"In either man or God."

She smiled softly. "No, I don't think I ever will."

She had left then, seeking out her own room to figure out what the man, certainly he was a man, had meant. Don't lose her faith in either man or God.

That wasn't the epiphany. It came years later, after tolerance had grown within her.

Lockheed was at the girl's side, and suddenly she mumbled the words.

"Don't lose faith in either man or God."

What's that supposed to mean? she heard as a gentle query.

She smiled. We're all God's children. No matter how we look or act. To lose my faith in man, would be to lose my faith in God. And to say that we're not all God's children would be to lose my faith in man.