The following story will be written by myself as well as my friend and partner in occasional crime. The canon characters within this story for the most part resemble the actors within X-Men First Class and the more recent films in looks but their personalities are a grand mixture of movies and comics. We're also taking some liberties of putting characters together who may not normally be in the same timelines within comics or movies. General timeline indication: when Magneto and Xavier are still young and "dumb." The rating of this story is violence, language, and sexuality based, so warning on that. We do not own anything associated with X-men, we only "own" our OC's and this story idea. Please feel free to critique or praise, as you see fit, and even offer up prompts/ideas for pairings or specific cameos of characters. Hope you are entertained and cheers!
Aptly named for every lifetime she'd had to live, Tlachtga Keena Sine Muirin Luan Niadh Ó Brádaigh Foley, currently known by her fourth name, knew she was dream walking. The beginning of dream walks always made her feel like she was buried beneath a mountain, her lungs screaming for air, and her body struggling for movement, but then she would feel like she was floating, eerily gliding through nothingness. And in the eerie nothingness that she'd grown used to, Muirin glimpsed a small shaft of light and knew immediately that it was not her own dream that she'd be walking through. In the light, she saw the outline of a little girl and knew instinctively who it was. She wanted to claw her way outside of the dream, not wanting to relive a moment with this girl as it brought too much pain, and yet with the same desperate longing she wanted to stay.
The little girl was thrashing around the room, tearing at the walls with sharp talons on her hands and bare feet, biting at the door with lengthened teeth, howling and screeching like a tortured animal, and crying blood red tears. Muirin watched as the girl's skin morphed into a scale like texture one moment only to resume its human form the next.
Suddenly a voice echoed in the room, "Now, now, dear, that's no way to act. You must be a good girl before we can give you supper."
The girl ceased all movement and sound as she glared up at the ceiling for a few seconds before crouching down. Muirin next watched the girl "climb" up the air until she could sink her talons into the ceiling and bite into the camera that monitored her actions. An electrical shock went through the girl but this only seemed to infuse her with more anger and she slammed her fist through the ceiling into the wires that ran throughout it. She ripped out a large section of the wiring, shredding it with her teeth and talons, screaming and howling as she did so. Blood was beginning to stain the ceiling from her self-inflicted wounds. Next, she leapt at the lighting fixture, punching through the protective covering and ripping the lights to shreds, earning herself more shocks and screaming loudly all the more.
Suddenly a portion of the wall opened and a small boy was pushed in. Emergency lighting, grotesquely red, flickered before fully coming on, casting the girl and boy in a sort of hellish color. The feral girl glared down at him, her teeth bared. The little boy was no older than the girl and yet she seemed to make no association from the way she began to pace around the ceiling, her talons keeping her rooted to it, eyeing him like prey. Her body rippled with power, her muscles much too defined for a girl her age.
"There's a good girl," the menacing voice echoed again, making the girl jump down and crouch in a corner like a frightened animal, "Eat supper like the little dragon that you are."
The little boy's eyes widened and he stared at the girl with fear and horror clearly written on his face. In the moment their eyes met the girl seemed to calm enough to look apologetic and ashamed but in the next moment Muirin watched, with tears burning her own eyes, as the little girl's body transformed entirely and she launched across the room and sank her elongated jaws into the screaming boy's neck, draining him of his life. As the boy's screams and struggles began to wane, the girl's red rimmed black eyes met Muirin's and Muirin felt her gut clench and her heart plummet.
"MUIRIN!" A voice cut through the dream and brought her back to reality.
Muirin jerked awake and stared at her young ward Caroline with unseeing eyes for a few moments, the bile in her throat from the memory/dream still threatening to spill out of her mouth. It had been some time since she'd had a dream of that intensity and the fact that she'd had one put her on immediate alert. It wasn't her dream, and it hadn't been her memory. That'd been from a time she'd been absent the waking world, when the girl already taken. The only person who would have known of that time or had a dream like that would be-
"What?" she interrupted her own train of thought, her voice hoarse and scratchy.
Caroline pushed a cup of water into her hands, "You were screaming so loud I thought the police would come." Caroline sat back on her haunches and Muirin noticed for the first time that the girl had crawled up into Muirin's bed and now sat on the mattress next to her. "Was it a bad dream?"
Muirin stared at her "dependent" in silence. Of course "dependent" wasn't exactly the term she should use for the precocious ten-year-old. Caroline had been placed in Muirin's care, or at least Muirin had assumed care for her, after Muirin had witnessed the massacre of the rest of the girl's family. Had she not transformed and "abducted" the girl from her captors, the girl would most likely have been robbed of any semblance of a normal life and would now be under the knife of ruthless fanatics. Being far from normal, and with powers Muirin still did not fully understand, Caroline for the most part exhibited typical ten-year-old mentality and habits. This had been quite the adjustment for Muirin to make, having lost contact with her own family eons before. However, in the three months they'd had together since their first meeting and rescue, Muirin believed they'd fallen into a routine and were growing closer by the day.
"It was worse than a dream, Caroline." Muirin sat up against her pillows so she could gargle the water a bit to sooth the soreness. She swallowed then continued, "It was a memory, of sorts."
"I have that too." Caroline glanced at the extra pillows beside Muirin's body then glanced back to Muirin, as if awaiting an invitation. Muirin nodded and almost immediately Caroline was tucked into the bed beside her. There was still some space between their bodies but they were both propped up, the covers up to their waists. "I don't scream like you though. At least I don't think I do. Do I?"
Muirin shook her head, "No you don't, but you have cried." She didn't know if she should have told the girl that or not but figured why not, considering the roles had been reversed and Caroline had wakened her from a nightmare. "Are they memories of when your parents were killed?"
"Yeah." Caroline looked down to the covers and began picking at some of the lose threads. "Muirin?"
"Yeah?"
"Why did they kill my parents?" Muirin looked down at her glass of water and wished it was something stronger. "I know you know why but why haven't you told me?" Caroline added when Muirin didn't immediately respond.
Muirin sighed and placed the glass on her bedside stand. "You already know that you are different from most children. You have unique abilities and unique needs." She waited until Caroline nodded her head before she continued. "Some people are afraid of that uniqueness. They assume that something different is something bad." She knew that sentiment intimately herself.
"So they killed my parents because of me?"
Muirin winced. Should she lie and say otherwise when that was in fact true? She looked over to the girl and saw no trace of tears or a threatening of them. She saw open curiosity and determination, fear as well, but mostly determination. She could understand that sense; the desire to understand something horrid even if she'd been the reason it'd happened.
"I can't say one hundred percent that they killed your parents because of you. I think that if your father hadn't tried to fight back or your mother tried to fight them off once they'd wounded your father, then maybe they might've tried to merely kidnap all of you. Now, that being said, do I think they would've killed all of you once they'd gotten what it was they'd wanted out of you? Yes, I do think that." She continued to watch the girl's face as she spoke, to see how the girl would react to her words. So far, the face remained the same, breathing rate as well.
"Do you think they wanted to know if my parents were like me?"
"Yes, I do. I don't think they knew everything about you, what exactly you were capable of, but they did know you were different enough to think you a threat. They naturally assumed that your parents would be similar if not the same as you."
Caroline was quiet a moment before she spoke again, "Do you think it was the blood?"
"What do you mean?"
"My parents only started buying blood off the black market the last few months before the," Caroline halted in her speech pattern as if the words were difficult to form but after a deep breath continued, "before the attack. I couldn't eat anything anymore and they couldn't afford to take me into the hospital. It was my father's idea."
Muirin nodded. She too continued to buy blood replacement for Caroline. She exhibited no aversion to sunlight, had developed no elongated incisors, and in general had no traits similar to vampires other than her dependence upon blood for sustenance. Muirin knew perfectly well that vampires were not the only things that went "bump" in the night and for her to accept that there was something else, namely something like Caroline, out there was easy enough. In her time, she'd come across far more creatures and mutants than what was currently known and talked about.
Most likely Caroline was the product of environmental exposure to various genetic elements through many generations; perhaps even experimentation as Muirin's own digging into Caroline's family's past had shown members from both sides being held prisoner during World War I and World War II, as well as Vietnam. There was any number of things that could lead to the creation of Caroline's abilities. Thus far they'd not been aggressive or harmful to others; mostly defensive. Muirin was curious how they'd develop in the future though, and only hoped she could be of some use to the girl when she needed to be.
It was only because of Caroline's needs that Muirin had contacted her old friend Remy LeBeau. She'd followed his exploits, as his trademark moves were easy to spot for her, and had tracked him to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters—earning a laugh in regards to the name considering it had been founded before mutants had been readily known by the rest of humanity. It would be the perfect set-up, if they could pull it off: Muirin as a professor with Caroline as a student. She could continue to monitor and care for Caroline at the same time that Caroline could be surrounded by other mutants all with the same hope: gaining balance in their lives.
Muirin didn't particularly like associating with mutants on a regular basis, mostly because it also put her under the microscope of society and she really didn't want to have to deal with the fallout if her true nature was discovered as a byproduct of that. However, again because of Caroline, she had given Remy her contact information and resume to pass on to her possible future employer and had received the invitation for an interview the day before. She was to visit the school for the interview the following day.
"What was your dream about?" Caroline's question brought Muirin's thoughts back to the present.
She weighed the pros and cons of lying to the girl or diverting her away but then she thought of how much the girl had been forced to share with Muirin out of necessity as well as her continued dependence upon her. Like it or not, they were going to be together for some time to come. Caroline needed to know more about Muirin than her own abilities and "otherness" if she was going to fully trust Muirin judgment in regards to her rearing techniques.
With that in mind Muirin spoke, "I dreamt of one of my descendants."
"One of your what's?"
"Descendants, someone who is related to me but distantly because of the passage of time. Caroline, I'm much older than I look."
Caroline raised her eyebrows, "Like how old?"
"Like I know exactly whether or not Saint Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland because I was there."
"Saint Patrick?" Caroline tipped her head to the side in thought. "Saint Patrick's day Saint Patrick? He was real?"
Muirin chuckled, "Yeah he was real. He was rather attractive too, for a priest."
"How long ago was that?"
"You do know that it's rude to ask a woman her age and/or weight?"
"How long?" Caroline insisted, rolling her eyes at Muirin's attempt to dissuade her.
"About sixteen hundred years."
Caroline's mouth dropped open, "You've been alive for sixteen hundred years? Don't you get bored?"
"Well, yes, if I'd been awake for all sixteen hundred years I suppose I'd have gotten bored." Muirin was laughing in spite of the seriousness of the conversation. "But my kind can sleep for long periods of time. In fact, when I'm in my normal form I don't need to sleep like humans do; I can stay awake constantly. But that leads up to my wanting to sleep for months, if not years, at a time to make up for that. When I'm in human form, because it takes constant concentration, I need sleep just as much if not more than regular humans."
"You've slept for years before?" Caroline asked and waited until Muirin nodded before she voiced her next question. "What's the longest that you've slept?"
Muirin had to think for a while before she could answer, "I think the longest was about eighty years."
"Eighty years?" Caroline shrieked and Muirin laughed at the look of absolute shock on the little girl's face. "How can you, I mean, where can you sleep for eighty years without anyone bothering you?"
"Oh Caroline, there are still many places humans have not explored on this great world and I can assure you that right now there are least a dozen more of my kind asleep somewhere."
Caroline shook her head, her brain most likely struggling to keep up with the numbers, let alone reconcile them to the image of Muirin herself. Muirin was left to contemplate her dream. Of course the holder of the dream could be anywhere within a three-hundred-mile radius and they may not have sensed her presence within the dream as well, but then again they may have. If they did, Muirin frowned to herself at the thought, then it was all the more imperative that she get the job at Xavier's school. She didn't want to expose Caroline to any more violence and the bearer of that particular dream was a guarantee for such.
"So are you a dragon?" Caroline's voice was quiet, as if she were afraid to offend Muirin by using such a term.
Muirin smiled, "We've been called monsters and dragons, but also lindworms, and wyverns, and drakes, and demons. Actually society's understanding of dragons is partially based in fact from various encounters regular humans have had with us over the years. This has fed into the myths and fairy tales that you've grown up with. But just as there are many different races of humans on earth, there are just as many different races of dragons if you will. Some of us have four legs, some two; some fly and some don't; some are mammoth size and some are no bigger than a cat." Caroline's eyes were huge and again Muirin noticed the glimmer in them. The girl was no longer thinking of her own pain as she was too engrossed in something else. Perhaps it had been a good choice to reveal so much to her. "Also just as you have good people and bad people, you have good dragons and you have bad dragons."
"So you're a good dragon, and you can fly, and you have four legs." Caroline spoke with confidence, relying upon her memory of Muirin's rescue near a year before. "You're also pretty, as a dragon I mean. I thought you were a weird-looking, flying, red and black horse, with a lizard tail and eagle claws, when I first saw you coming out of the sky toward me that night."
Muirin smiled, though the smile was sad, "Well I'm glad I didn't frighten you when I was in my normal form. However, I do need to say that I would never claim to be wholly good. There have been things that I've done, that I felt I had to do in my lifetime, that I would not want to reveal to you or anyone else for that matter." Caroline's eyes were much more discerning than a ten-year-old's should be and Muirin attributed that to the reason she was revealing so much; that and also the fact that she'd not had a close companion to talk to in many years. "I'll be honest with you Caroline, in that taking care of you, I know I can't fix the mistakes I've made in the past, but I do hope that I've learned from them and can teach you how to avoid them."
"Redemption right?" Caroline rubbed at her eyes, sleepiness creeping in despite her interest in the conversation. "Is that the right word?"
Muirin nodded, "Yes that's the right word."
Caroline nodded before shifting down more against the pillows. She'd apparently made the decision to share Muirin's bed without asking. Muirin didn't particularly mind, they only had the two double beds in the hotel room so it wasn't as if she'd been sleeping with any privacy anyway. She leaned over and flipped the bedside lamp off, Caroline must've turned it on earlier, before she too shifted downward on the bed. She was just about to roll over and attempt sleep when Caroline's sleepy voice sounded again.
"Can I sleep with you tomorrow night too?"
"Yes, you can."
"Thank you." The girl's voice drifted off on her last word and it carried on into her sleep.
Muirin watched Caroline's back as she slept for a few moments more, not wanting to think of her dream, not wanting to think of all the descendants she'd not been able to protect from hunters and fanatics. Of course, as sleep crept over her as well she found it harder to not let her mind wander.
The dream had been from the 1970's, during one of Muirin's hibernation periods. The girl had been stolen from her family and "raised" by a group of men and women who'd considered themselves scientists but were in every fashion torturers. When Muirin had finally awakened in the late 1990's it had been the girl's brother who'd told her everything; she typically kept her distance from her descendants, preferring to let them live without her influence over their lives, but the family had contacted her in desperation. They'd not known if the girl was dead or alive and had needed her to find out.
Using the blood ties—as matriarch, hers were much stronger than any of the others—Muirin could always locate a descendent and she'd used that to find the girl, now a broken woman. It was from that woman that she'd received the dream and it was from that woman that Muirin wished to keep Caroline. While she was not wholly evil, there was a darkness inside her, nurtured by the men who'd stolen her and who she'd later killed, a darkness that had a tendency to swallow up all others around her. If she could spare Caroline from that darkness she would.
Ironic that she felt that way and yet she had every intention of taking Caroline into a mansion filled with mutants, and all with their own horror stories.
