A big thank you to Carmilla for helping me with my mediocre German skills! I really stumbled over those phrases while writing them so I appreciate the help.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I can hear Erik beside me. He's asleep, which I guess I can understand. It's been a long day for him. It's been a long year. I'm lying on my back staring at the dusty canvas innards of our tent, thinking. It's good to be with him again.
I tried to seduce the Wolverine earlier. He's got strength and muscle to spare, and from the first time I saw him, I could sense the raw sexuality that composed his entire being. If I'd succeeded—if he hadn't figured out that I wasn't that lovely red haired doctor he worships so much—well, I'd have brought myself to orgasm and then morphed, right there, right before he, too, reached the breaking point. I've done it before and it never fails to thrill me. The expression on a man's face as he realizes that I'm not the woman he thought I was…
When that attempt proved futile, I thought I might make him angry enough that he'd want to overpower me, force me down and take me in what he would probably later remember as a rage-fueled moment of inexcusable fury. He'd be wrong, of course. I'm always in charge.
I'm back in my own tent after only a few minutes, so I suppose it's obvious that I failed on both counts. I lean into Erik's body, pressing my face against his neck. If he weren't asleep already…well…I can't wake him up. I wouldn't do that, not tonight. It's too good to have him back, and he's done so much for me.
But when I think about it, I realize that I've probably returned the favor several times over.
Erik found me while I was more lost than I've ever felt in my entire life. I was fifteen, and I'd been wandering for days through rural Germany after being almost forcibly removed from the house of my mother. I suppose I should explain why that is.
I grew up without a father. I know absolutely nothing about him and would have suspected my mother of virgin birth if not for the fact that she was certainly no saint. I had an older sister, Silke, and a little dog we called Mopsi. Silke was breathtakingly beautiful even at the age of ten, eyes blue as cornflowers and hair the color of straw and texture of silk. I despised her more than anything else on the planet, and I suspect she felt similarly about me. My mother told her—and she, in turn, told me—that little Silke had looked like a cherub at birth and an angel as she approached adolescence. I'm sure the irony of my appearance was not lost on either of them.
I was born blue. My mother thought initially that I was an asphyxiated stillborn and in retrospect I'm sure she was very disappointed that this wasn't the case. I know nothing else of my birth but I assume there was a good deal of chaos surrounding it. My mother had once told me—albeit, in a fit of rage—that she'd have suffocated me herself if not for her fear of a vengeful God. Blue skin, flame-colored hair, yellow eyes. No wonder they thought I was a demon. The scales came later, and that rendered my appearance even harder to accept. I hated myself for years.
When I was fourteen, my mother fell ill. Inexplicably so. She withered from a lovely middle-aged woman to a crone within months. Silke, eighteen, was at boarding school, and rushed home as soon as she could. She'd been away for half a year at that point, and never had the house seemed so pleasant to me. With my mother incapacitated beyond reason, I became suddenly the only coherent human being around, the only person competent enough to dictate my actions. A private nurse, Ulrike, moved in with us, but ignored my presence entirely. Caring for my mother was a full-time job, apparently, and it paid well. Ignoring me, I suspect, made the entire experience that much easier to stomach.
But as I mentioned, Silke came home. Damn it, had she gotten prettier while away? I was doing dishes in the kitchen when she bolted in, saw I was the only one there, and exited without a word.
"Mutti? Mutti?!"
I remember thinking about saying something. She's in the guest room, Silke. She's too weak to climb the stairs so they've moved her. Remember the guest room towards the back of the house? That one. Go on. Go see Mutti.
She finally did, with no assistance from me, of course. I heard her shrill scream from across the house and I probably could have heard it from halfway across our little town, too. That sound shattered my reverie—what I was thinking about, I can't remember—and caused me to drop a dish. I'd gotten used to our mother's appearance—so moribund, so completely feeble and disgusting. It was a sight that would have aroused great pity in my heart had I not hated her so much.
Silke stomped in. As pretty as she was, she certainly did not tread like an angel. "Was ist passiert? Warum musst du Mutti erschrecken? Kannst du nicht sehen, wie krank unsere Mutter ist?"
It was the first time I'd heard her describe our mother in such…mutual terms. The comraderie wasn't long for this world, however.
"Ich erschrecke niemand. Ich bleibe hier bei Mutti während du in der Schule bist.! Ich leiste ihr Gesellschaft!" I snapped.
Silke threw her head back with laughter. "Du bleibst, weil du nirgendwo anders hinkannst. Du bist ein Unfall, eine Mutantin! Jetzt sei ruhig!"
With that, she left in the direction from which she'd come.
I went up into the attic after finishing the dishes. I'd been spending a lot of time up there even though I almost had the entire house to myself, just generally wandering around in those grimy crevices. I'll admit that I've forgotten most of that attic, but the scent of stale air, the glittery little dust particles that flitted through pale streams of midday sunlight…those I remember. Those and the mirror.
The mirror was where I discovered my powers. I suppose without them I'd be a mutant too, but a pretty ineffectual one. I've cat-like agility and muscles like tense springs, but those things wouldn't have been enough to help Erik, and they came only after training.
I'd been sitting on the attic floor, tracing pictures in the thick layers of dust that coated it. My name, Raven. A bird lighting on a disembodied branch. The ghoulish countenance of my hated sister. As I did so, I mimicked her expression. Her wide, pretty eyes, the pursed-pink lips of her ugly, angry mouth. Then I glanced at the mirror for inspriation.
I remember spinning around. Silke was there, she was behind me, and despite all my claims of fearlessness I felt my heart jump into my throat. No one likes to be crept up on. But then I couldn't see her, not anywhere. I guess it was the sudden flash of blonde hair over my field of vision that caused me to scream, and then, clasping a hand over my mouth, look back into the mirror. It was Silke, all right. I was Silke. I drew my hand over the silky pale skin of my sister's cheek…and that's when I became Raven once more. Under my fingers that light, delicate skin turned blue and scaly, and for several minutes I sat frozen in front of the mirror, waiting for it to happen again.
My mother died later that week and I became guilty over my lack of concern. Hours before her death I had come to visit her. I guess I wanted to make amends. She may have been a cold-hearted bitch but she was the only thing I'd ever had that even closely resembled a mother. When I entered the room, she'd begun screaming at me.
"Dämon!! Dämon!!"
I'm not sure whether she recognized me or not, but I suppose it doesn't matter much.
That very day, Silke announced that she had been given total ownership of the house and I was no longer welcome. She'd added, as if she imagined it charitable, that she intended to send me to a school—I don't recall which—with some of the money she'd gained from our mother's will. I didn't give her the chance. Let her keep her damned money. The next morning I left the house at sunup, and wandered aimlessly throughout the German countryside. For months.
Then one day, he found me. My Erik. I was a blonde, similar looking to Silke, for I had not quite established total control of my powers and there was little more I could do. He'd taken my hand and kissed it, an action I was convinced he would have avoided had he seen my true shape.
I was wrong.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
German translation:
Silke stomped in. As pretty as she was, she certainly did not tread like an angel. "What happened? Why do you have to upset Mom? Can't you see how sick our mother is?"
It was the first time I'd heard her describe our mother in such…mutual terms. The comraderie wasn't long for this world, however.
"I didn't upset anybody. I stay here with Mother while you're away at school! I keep her company!" I snapped.
Silke threw her head back with laughter. "You stay because you have nowhere to go. You're an accident, a—mutant! Now be quiet!"