1911

The air was always crisp here at this time of day; like an empire apple, smooth and ripe, it smelt of sweetness and tasted of cool water and summer grass. A gentle breeze rolled through the orchard and splashed against the tips of every leaf, awakening a melody of tiny sounds that rose and fell to an erratic rhythm. A tempestuous sea of noise. Raven listened with a quiet intent, eyes drawn shut and cigarette caressed timidly between ivory-white teeth. The smoke twirled about in a delicate choreography for a moment, then vanished on the wind of the afternoon. The ground beneath her back was soft, alive with the textures of lemongrass and moss, and the sun was as sweet as the air, blanketing her dark blue skin in an envelope of warmth. The summer in Austria had been akin to no other the woman had experienced; the nostalgia was thick and ranged from all corners of the vast landscape, from the dense forests to the bustle of everyday life in the city. This was her home and, as the cliché went, there was no place like it.

A presence acquainted itself with a light touch to her shoulder, a feather-soft brush of a hand. She hummed inquiring through her lips and did not open her eyes, waiting instead for a word to be spoken from her visitor. The response instead was a pull at the cigarette, yanking it upwards and away from the lax grip of her teeth. At this action the shapeshifter moaned in distress and revealed one tawny eye. Her gaze was met by that of a young blind girl, who with a knowing smile snapped her wrist and flicked the cigarette into the tall grass.

"Irene, that was my last one," Raven groaned, looking up into the girl's clouded eyes. She knew that although Irene's abilities left her blind, she could still 'see' through her mind's eye. The 20 year old was more than capable of sight, if not on a visual scale than on a psychic one.

"Good. Now stay away from them. " A chuckle, as soft as the moss she lay on. The brown haired girl knelt next to her. "They're going to be discovered as the leading cause of cancer related death in a few decades."

"If you say so." The changer had learned over the last year that she had known the precognitive to trust her judgment, no matter how ridiculous or trivial her predictions seemed.

"You shouldn't lay out in the sun so often either. It can cause skin cancer."

Raven sighed and sat up. "Seems like the only things that are worth doing are the ones that might kill you."

A frown. "You sound unhappy."

"Well, it's disappointing."

"That's not it. There is something else bothering you."

"You don't already know?"

A pause. "No."

"Liar."

"No, I swear I don't. Honest." She placed a ginger hand over her breast. "Cross my heart."

The woman let another sigh run through her teeth, disturbing strands of crimson hair that had escaped from her loose bun. A long while passed before she spoke again, the cogs of her mind struggling to put the words together into an understandable explanation. She settled for a vague metaphor instead.

"There are too many missing pieces."

The girl sat patiently, waiting for her to continue.

"What we're doing, it's like trying to smash a mirror in order to change the reflection. Once it's broken, it's nearly impossible to put back together. There are too many variables, too many pieces that are smashed beyond repair." Another pause. "And even once you manage to recreate the mirror, it's still the same reflection. Just warped and distorted, covered with gaping holes and blood smears."

The metamorph looked up and into the eyes of her companion, concern lit in tawny orbs. "Irene, how can we be sure that even after all of our efforts the future in your visions isn't just going to happen anyway? What if we're trying to change something that simply cannot be changed?"

"The future is but a reflection of the past. Things will appear there only if we allow them to exist here. We aren't trying to smash the mirror itself per say, but rather manipulate the image within it."

Raven squinted at her suspiciously, a very slight pout forming on her lips.

"What?"

"That was a pretty quick response. You're trying to tell me you didn't rehearse that little bit beforehand?"

Irene put her hands up defensively and frowned. "I promised, didn't I?"

"So it just happened to roll off your tongue as perfectly as it did?"

"I understand you, Raven. I know how to answer your questions because I was at one point asking myself those very same things. They are conclusions I formulated to cure my own self-doubt."

The shifter studied the girl skeptically, running her eyes from her elegant, bare feet to her wavy auburn locks. The permanent furrow between her eyebrows, the slight, subtle smile that danced atop her perfect lips, the confidence that lingers always on her shoulders and in her clouded eyes. The straight and gentle curve of her back and the strength of her voice told a world of pure truth in a place that could only lie maliciously.

"…I trust you."

Irene's features softened in a subtle relief. "Thank you, my friend. It has been far too long since I last heard that."

It was difficult, this life. In the serenity of such a rare peace, everything seemed simpler, kinder; the humans were not biting at their heels, filling their breath with the smog of hate and moral decay. In this fleeting moment—far too brief to contemplate—the world was quiet. Not silent, not pure, not remotely sympathetic nor any more humane, but quiet. Hopeful, perhaps.

For the first time in far too long, the sky shone a brilliant blue and the sun, in all of its life giving beauty, offered a small comfort.

In the past, Raven had learned to hate these moments. They, like a fleeting summer's dream, brought with them not only the lightness of tranquility but the aftermath of something terrible. A dreadful thing, that consumed the sun and devoured the light that now warmed them so; sorrowful and greedy, it stole them back into a world that condemned and detested them. Waking from a blissful mare into a place of hellish blaze; no matter how real those dreams seemed, you always awoke the same person, in the same world surrounded by the same ugly people, and in this she could find nothing but sadness and anger. Hate was a debilitating disease that infected and festered and multiplied; she did not wish to become any more tainted than she was.

And she most certainly did not wish to condemn Irene to the same fate. She already possessed far too little innocence as it was, plagued with the poison of tomorrow's nightmare.

A cold wind swept over the field, pulling angry clouds over their heads and forcing the grasses to bow in a wave unison. In the distance, a dense fog tumbled clumsily over the horizon and the smell of the coming rains filled the senses, static charging the atmosphere with teasing electricity. Irene closed her eyes and put her nose upwind.

"A storm is coming soon. We should head back."

"Yes…"

Raven stretched languidly upwards with an arch of her spine. Several of the vertebrae popped rhythmically in response. She rose to her feet in one fluid motion and outstretched a hand to Irene, pulling her up gently and snatching the silver cane from its resting place in the weed. The blind girl took it graciously.

And with that, the two mutants left that sacred time and made their way back into a grim reality. The shifter's skin lightened to a warm Caucasian and her sharp tawny eyes drained, swirling with a vivid green. Crimson hair followed suit and reformed to a deep ebony to match the neat tuxedo she wore. She brushed a spot of dirt from her fedora and placed it atop her head, the hood casting a shrouding shadow over her eyes.

Irene hooked her arm into the woman's pocketed one and smiled sadly.

A/N: Reviews are deeply and sincerely appreciated 3 More to come…