Early Autumn of 1855, Mississippi
Golden
sunlight splashed lazily over clusters of fragrant jasmine and gardenia
petals while the last notes of a mockingbird's sweet song floated through
the air, as the seventeen-year-old German-American boy crept mock-stealthily
toward an unsuspecting girl in flowered rose crinoline sitting with a large
group of her friends and talking and laughing as if without a care in the
world. Kurt Wagner absently brushed some disobedient strands of his long
blue-black hair away from his eyes as he continued sneaking up on a certain
lively, pretty brunette, the mischievous grin on his face growing wider
and causing his dimple to deepen visibly when he caught several of Sam
Guthrie's younger siblings gawking wide-eyed at him over their slices of
watermelon. Ever friendly, Kurt tossed a cheerful wave at the interested
little children, before raising his index finger meaningfully to his lips
and flashing an exaggerated wink for them to stay quiet. Having struck
this deal with the "witnesses" to his little mission, Kurt resumed tiptoeing
across the dewy emerald grass, when Rahne Sinclair, sitting in front of
his selected target, happened to glance up at the last minute, throwing
his plans awry. As the charming Irish girl's heart-shaped mouth started
to part in warning, Kurt quickly salvaged what he could of his plan and
dived the last couple of feet separating him from his ponytailed target,
clasping his hands tightly over her eyes.
"Guess
who?" he sang out, at the same time that Kitty let out a little squeal
of surprise, before laughing as she reached up with her slender hands to
wrench his fingers away from her face with a cry of, "Kurt! When will you
ever tire of these silly old pranks?" The youngest daughter of Charles
Xavier, owner of one of the largest and wealthiest plantations in the Deep
South, whipped around in a half-hearted attempt to glare at her neighbor
and best friend since childhood, before the flash of mirth dancing across
her cornflower-blue eyes gave her away and she dissolved into sunny little
peals of giggles.
"You
are so immature, Kurt Wagner!" the now sixteen-year-old Kitty tried
to chastise, adding with a pseudo-haughty toss of her long, chestnut-brown
hair, "Why, even Bobby Drake has outgrown such childish pranks and started
acting like a respectable seventeen-year-old gentleman by now."
"Me,
immature?" Kurt teasingly fluttered his eyelashes in the rapid, coquettish
manner of Southern girls, earning himself a roll of the eyes from Kitty
as he continued, the mischief in his voice heightened by his faint German
accent, "You're ze one who's laughing at my supposedly immature pranks,
Miss Keety."
"Yeah,
because nobody else would feel sorry enough to ever humor you and your
ridiculous little antics, Mr. Wagner," Kitty wasted no time in retorting
with a playful smirk, reaching over and lightly pinching him on the back
of his hand.
A few
feet away, lounging casually on a wide calico blanket and occasionally
flashing her best smiles at the best-looking county boys, Tabitha turned
to an eighteen-year-old Jean trying to convince Wanda that long hair wasn't
as unmanageable as she made it out to be, and whispered conspiratorially
while flinging a casual wag of her head toward a certain couple, "Hey,
Jeannie, is it just me or is your baby sister over there getting a bit
too
friendly with her good friend?" Jean paused in her conversation, a concerned
frown beginning to darken her viridian eyes at the prospect of a family
member disgracing herself in front of the entire county by behaving too
boldly. Her glance fell on the spiritedly laughing and chatting Kurt and
Kitty, and her frown began to lighten once she saw that her sister's conduct
around the boy wasn't too forward, after all--or at least, not as much
as Tabitha had hinted it to be.
"Tabby,
you shouldn't insinuate things--" Jean began to defend her youngest sister,
when at that moment Amara cut in.
"But
Kitty is acting a bit too freely around him," she interjected critically,
her pretty little nose turning up in clear disdain over the scene unfolding
in front of them. "After all, a true lady would never just reach out and
hold a gentleman's hand like that."
"She's
not holding his hand," Jean spoke up for Kitty. "She's merely--"
"I
don't know, Jeannie," Tabitha broke in, then added meaningfully, "If I
were you, I'd watch her conduct around men more closely--after all, your
younger sisters seem to have developed a rather unsettling tendency to...ahem,
let's just say, associate too closely with certain gentlemen of foreign
descent?" The spirited blonde finished with a veneer of delicacy that poorly
concealed her blatant jest, causing Wanda to scowl at her viciously blunt
words and interrupt in an icy tone, "Tabitha, it wouldn't hurt you to think
about your words before you just open your mouth and start spreading petty
gossip all over the county." Tabitha smirked, tossing back her feathery
gold hair and laughing, "Hey, I was just teasing there, no need to get
so overprotective! It's high time somebody around here started treating
Rogue's elopement with more humor, rather than act as though our hearts
were breaking with shame and--"
"That's
enough," Jean spoke up in a coolly even voice, her cherry eyebrows starting
to dip together in the beginnings of a frown. "The Wagners are our closest
neighbors and friends, and it's a well-known fact that Kurt is one of Kitty's
favored suitors. There should be no need to fret over a friendly conversation
between two members of the genteel class." Her carefully neutral words,
devoid of any indignation or distress, served well their purpose in cutting
off further speculation about the appropriateness of Kitty's pleasantly
carefree behavior around Kurt, and Amara was quick to clear her throat
and skillfully change the subject to one of her beaus in an effort to divert
Tabitha's attention from her semi-confrontation with Jean.
Kitty
flashed her famous perky smile as Kurt returned with a slice of white vanilla
cake on a carefully polished china dish, sweeping down in an exaggerated
bow as he handed the pastry to her while trying his best to imitate a suave
Parisian drawl, "Ze finest French dessert for ze finest French beauty here,
Mademoiselle." Kitty couldn't resist rolling her eyes heavenward at his
little show as she accepted the cake from him, reminding with a hint of
silvery laughter in her voice, "Kurt, don't be silly, I'm no more French
than you are!"
"Ah,
but zat is vhere Mademoiselle is wrong," Kurt corrected her gallantly.
"Your sister's married to zat Frenchman now, isn't she? Zat makes you French
by law. I think." Kitty hid a smile at his explanation.
"Kurt,
that is the most ridiculous logical reasoning I've ever heard in my entire
life," she scoffed, playfully pinching him on the hand again and causing
him to drop his hat which he'd been clutching as he'd dipped it in her
direction. "Besides, Mr. LeBeau's Cajun, not French, and while we're on
the subject of my sister's husband, that is the absolute worst imitation
of his accent and mannerisms that I've ever had the bad luck of witnessing!"
A mock hurt expression appeared over Kurt's features, as he dramatically
clapped his hand to his heart and lamented with embellished heartbreak,
"Ah, so it
is true--in your eyes I could never be ze gallant and
enigmatic foreign cavalier zat Remy LeBeau vas to your sister! My hopes
of vooing you are now completely shattered! Ruined beyond repair! Broken!
Crushed! Devastated! Er...vhat's another synonym for destroyed? Oh, yeah,
destroyed!" Kitty had collapsed into merry peals of laughter by then, her
cornflower-blue eyes dancing as she protested, "Please, stop! You know
it's utterly inappropriate for a lady to be guffawing like some jolly old
field hand!" A wicked grin lit up Kurt's face, as he teased, "And just
think of how people vill react if zey find out ze charming and demure Miss
Jean's youngest sister is running around hooting like a field hand!" Kitty
lightly slapped him in the arm.
"They
won't
find out, if a certain immature little prankster doesn't go telling everybody,"
she threatened with a half-hearted attempt at the meanest scowl she could
manage. Kurt covered his heart with his hat, mustering up the most sincere
expression he could think of while swearing solemnly, "I promise I von't,
Miss Keety. After all, I do value my life above even ze prettiest
girl in ze South," he added under his breath. Kitty turned as pink as the
tiny tea roses tucked into her hair at the last part of his sentence, which
she felt he'd spoken loud enough for everybody around them to hear. To
cover up her embarrassment, she turned her face away and let her hair partially
cover her blush as she mumbled, "Oh, Kurt, that is so trite and foolish,"
while slapping him on the back with more force than she realized she had
in an attempt to delicately push him away. Kurt winced and nearly toppled
over from the strength of what his pretty companion had intended to be
a light and dainty push, deliberately making a show of crossing his eyes
comically as he fell face first onto the blanket, much to the delight of
the younger Guthrie children, who'd been watching this exchange with barely
concealed interest.
Also
watching in interest were Tabitha, Amara, and Jean, with the former two
commenting that if Kurt was trying to propose to Kitty, then he might as
well just admit it and get the whole process over with.
"After
all," Tabitha was saying, pushing away her half-eaten plate of biscuits
and fried chicken, "we all know your sister's going to end up marrying
him sooner or later, anyway. Look at how close they've been, ever since
childhood, before he even became one of her beaus." Amara daintily tasted
a slice of strawberry tart, sighing dreamily, "She's right, Jean--it's
like those two were meant to be together since they were born." Tabitha
nodded with her usual breezy enthusiasm, flashing a winning smile at her
supporter while adding, "And besides, you know your father will be pleased
at such a match. At the very least, far more pleased than he was at your
other sister's choice of husband." Jean shot the blonde vixen a sharp look
for her carefully snuck in jeer, but eventually conceded, "Yes, there isn't
a match that the county won't approve of more than Kurt and Kitty--that
is, if they decide they want to spend the rest of their lives together.
A marriage takes far more than just a friendly relationship between the
couple to work."
"Yeah,
we know, they have to understand each other's minds and souls, and all
those other lovely precautions," Tabitha rolled her eyes, remembering Jean
and Pietro's excuse for backing out of their marriage at the last minute.
"But I still say that Kurt should just stop fidgeting around and propose
to Kitty already, before one of these days some other fellow swoops in
and--"
"Hush,
all of you!" Wanda broke in irritably, obviously annoyed by what she deemed
as frivolous, girlish talk of suitors and weddings. "They're coming this
way; do try to have more sense than talk about them as if they're
not around to hear every word."
Amara
and Jean quieted down immediately, the former a bit intimidated by Wanda's
sharp words and sharper glare, the latter relieved that attention would
now be shifted away from her youngest sister's affairs. But Tabitha, as
Kurt and Kitty headed merrily toward them, wasn't held back by such precautions,
and she wasted no time in remarking with pointed casualness as soon as
they were within hearing range, "Say, Kitty, didn't Bobby Drake call on
you yesterday to offer a marriage proposal?" A slightly confused expression
peeked over Kitty's features at Tabitha's choice of conversation, even
as the pert blonde herself carefully watched Kurt's face for any signs
of jealousy while masking her forwardness with a look of utmost innocence.
"Yes,
he did, as a matter of fact," Kitty finally admitted with a shrug of her
slim shoulders, and a lightning frown blazed across Kurt's features as
he turned around and looked at her upon her confirmation.
"And
I'm afraid I had to turn him down, as is appropriate of all first-time
proposals, even though Bobby acted very sweetly during our carriage ride,"
Kitty continued. "Although he did reveal that he's retained that
charming tendency of his to crack boisterous jokes that are both indelicate
and quite unfunny."
"It's
a shame, really, that your other suitors, despite being great in numbers,
are still even less debonaire so as to make you actually consider Bobby's
proposal," Tabitha fluttered her eyelashes with a sigh, then hinted meaningfully,
"If only there were a knight in shining armor for you, perhaps even right
under your own nose, who would come calling with a marriage proposal..."
"Miss
Keety," Kurt suddenly broke in, speaking in a hurried rush of sentences
and occasionally tripping over his words, "if you need someone to escort
you to ze Maximoff ball next Sunday, I'll be more zan happy to--"
A sudden
rush of hooves and discordant echo of neighs broke into his words, as a
short cremelo burst into view from out of the evergreen forest, its rider
quickly reining it in and halting to a stop in front of Jean and Kitty.
Evan Daniels, the nephew of Miss Ororo and a carpenter's apprentice on
the Xavier plantation, hastily leapt off his horse and dashed over to the
two Young Misses, calling out in a voice punctuated by sharp gasps for
air that revealed he'd left in a great hurry, "Miss Jean...Miss Kitty...go
back to the plantation!" Jean and Kitty quickly stood up, gathering their
rustling hoop skirts around them with the elder calmly walking over to
Evan and asking in a soft, soothing voice, "Evan, is something the matter?"
while her sister fretted over what sorts of emergencies and disasters might
be plaguing her family's plantation so as to require her immediate return.
By then, Evan had regained both his breath and his composure, and he now
explained in more coherent words, "Auntie O sent me to escort you back
home...and you too, Miss Maximoff," turning in Wanda's direction and adding,
"Mr. Maximoff said it isn't safe for his only daughter to be socializing
without his personal supervision, when rumors are running rampant about
their imminent arrival in this county." Jean looked relieved that some
terrible catastrophe hadn't befallen her home and family, the way Evan's
initial tone of voice seemed to suggest, while a curious Kitty asked, "Who
are they?" Wanda, meanwhile, had risen stoically when informed of her father's
wishes, and now snapped with poorly-concealed ire, "Scarlet and I aren't
going anywhere just because my father thinks he can control my every move,"
referring to her fleet-footed strawberry mare, the fastest in three counties,
whose ability to outrun even the dauntless Scott Summers's palomino stallion
was a source of great pride to her mistress. A dismayed look came over
Evan's features when he realized that Wanda Maximoff wasn't about to be
cajoled into obeying her father's command any time soon, but before he
could dredge up a way to inveigle the headstrong raven-haired beauty into
coming home, Jean spoke up, repeating Kitty's question.
"Evan,"
she asked with her usual undaunted calm, "who are these people arriving
at this county today that have Miss Ororo and Mr. Maximoff so concerned
for our safety?" Evan shrugged, absently scratching the back of his head
as he tried to recall his aunt's hasty words of explanation before sending
him off on his task.
"I'm
not sure, I can't really remember all the details since I was in such a
rush," he began uncertainly, but the strong, silent smile on Jean's face
helped ease away his hesitation and he continued with more confidence,
"I believe Auntie O and Mr. Maximoff mentioned something about a gang of
desperadoes who're rumored to be coming into this county at any given hour
between today and next week, and they're very concerned about your safety
should the rumors prove to be true."
"Sounds
rather exciting," Tabitha, who'd been lounging around keeping one ear on
their conversation and the other half-heartedly listening to Amara go on
about her suitors, spoke up casually with an idle smile.
"And
rather reasonable, as well, about Miss Ororo's wishes for us to go home,
Kitty," Jean mused thoughtfully. "Where's the carriage?"
"We
came with Amara and her mother, remember?" Kitty reminded her nervously,
smoothing back her hair and glancing around at the carefree picnic scene
with a longing look on her face. She'd wanted to stay much longer than
just a couple of hours, and she didn't see any reason why her socializing
should be cut short simply because of mere county gossip. Why, everybody
ought to know by now how outrageous and far-off these rumors can be...
"Miss
Maximoff?" Evan had never been quite sure how to refer to Pietro Maximoff's
twin sister, and since quite frankly her acute demeanor and chilly glare
intimidated him, he usually opted for the most formal of titles whenever
addressing her. "Are you going to return to your plantation as well? Mr.
Maximoff said--" Wanda's icy blue eyes narrowed angrily, and she gritted
out, "Like I already informed you, I'm not about to be jerked around to
adjust to my father's wishes. I'll stay as long as I like." Her tone of
voice was final, leaving no room for arguments or compromises, and Evan
turned helplessly toward Miss Jean, who was usually able to find a way
to reason with others. To his surprise, the statuesque redhead today saw
no reason to interfere with Wanda's decision, as she gave in amiably, "That's
your choice Wanda, but please make sure to return safely once you do decide
to go home." Turning to Kitty, she added, "We should probably go back to
the plantation right now, Kitty. Go ask Amara; I do believe she'll want
to return as well once she hears about the outlaws." Kitty shrugged, but
obediently walked the few steps toward Amara, who was still nattering on
about her latest beau, and tapped her on the shoulder to talk.
That Same Day, California
Outside,
a blue-uniformed guard was calling out in a booming bass, "All aboard!"
cupping his hands around his mouth to increase the sound of his voice.
Inside the newly remodeled white-and-gray train, a young man with dark,
rugged good looks and longish brown hair strolled at a leisurely pace down
the hallway of the near-empty first class car, stopping in front of a distinguished-looking,
silver-haired gentleman reading a newspaper. Leaning down, hands shoved
inside the pockets of his long, black coat, the darkly handsome youth,
who appeared to be no older than twenty, asked in a voice with a deliberate
politeness that poorly hid the sneering flippancy behind it, "Excuse me,
good sir, but would you mind if I take this seat?" The gentleman barely
glanced up from his newspaper, a small frown darkening his face at being
so rudely talked to as he replied automatically, "No, it's reserved."
Obviously
for people with more class and money than you, his tone of voice finished
silently for him. The dark-haired boy took his answer in stride.
"Oh.
I'm sorry to hear that." His words were deceptively quiet as he spoke,
and before the older man had a chance to glance up, a huge, rough paw had
reached over from seemingly nowhere and locked around his neck in a painful,
vise-like grip, hoisting him several feet off the ground and nearly choking
the air out of his windpipes.
"For
you see," the youth continued calmly, as the silver-haired gentleman coughed
and kicked his feet feebly about, "reservations mean nothing to the Brotherhood
when we've got a contract to carry out." And he turned to the coarse, long-haired
blonde behemoth beside him, who was still dangling his elderly captive
in the air. After a few more minutes of watching the desperate gentleman
struggle, the dark-haired youth finally give his comrade a vaguely meaningful
look, at which the feral giant easily flung his victim out of the window
just as the train started moving.
As the train slowly but steadily rolled out of the station, the doors of the car burst open and two more figures lumbered in while their dark-haired leader, ironically the youngest amongst the motley crew, casually flopped down into the seat previously occupied by the gentleman, stretching out his feet over the table with a cockily calculating air that indicated he felt he now owned this room. The older of the new arrivals took a seat opposite him, crossing his bulging arms across his powerfully-muscled chest while growling in words harshened by his cold Russian accent, "I do not t'ink this was such a good way to acquire transportation. That old man is probably calling the police right this minute." His dark-haired associate indolently raised one eyebrow in the tall Russian's direction, the crooked devil-may-care smirk on his lips speaking louder than words, before he leaned back and tossed his head on the rim of his seat, crossing his long legs on the table and lazily lowering a cowboy hat over his face to shut out the bright morning sunlight while he took a nap, as the train steadily traveled on from California to its intended destination--Mississippi.