Young Elf
An X-men fanfic
By KT
Nighttime falls over a small town in Germany. From the distance can be seen a large group of armed teenagers, mostly boys, running through the town, seemingly running after something, but that something is hard to spot from a distance.
It is a little blue something. A human-shaped something. A young boy perhaps, wearing a dark brown cloak a little too big for him. Whipping around in his hand was a bag with bread, beginning to crumble. His young child's face distorted with fear and concentration on running as fast as possible. Suddenly he stops for half a second, and with a quiet sound that could only be described as "Bamf" he disappears for a moment, and then re-appears a little ways farther than he would have had he run the same distance. But it isn't enough, the crowd of gang-banging boys chasing after him speeds up. He begins to run again, now stumbling half the way. A tail, pointed like a demon's and covered in soft blue fur, like velvet, whips out behind the boy, abandoning the belt loop in which it had been safely tucked up until panic left it forgotten.
"Mutter, mutter!" the strange boy cries out, tears now flying from his bright yellow eyes, "Mutter Help!"
The game of fox and hound runs to the edge of the inner town where shops are kept, out to the outskirts where houses dot here and there, then farther out to where the houses are fewer, with bigger yards and are closer to the river. The little boy's cries can be heard for miles, but no such luck for the lad, no one comes out of the houses to save him from the murderous older boys. As the gang catches up to the little blue child, they begin calling out to him, taunting, "Missgeburt!" "Teufel!" and other such rude names. But the boy cannot hear them. Not only because he is busy running for his life to worry about their cat-calling, but because he has long been accustomed to these harsh torments.
Puddles surround a house with only one light on inside "Mutter! Mutter!" can be heard faintly in the distance inside the warm little cottage. A woman, probably in her thirties although worn for her age, looks up from the book she was reading. She closes her eyes, listening hard, wondering if she might have been mistaken for the voice she thought she heard. "Mutter! Mutter help! Mutt-ack!" and a splash.
"Kurt…" she mutters worriedly as she dashes out of the cottage.
Bare footed and jacketless the woman dashes out of the house and into the muddy yard. She runs, nearly tripping in the soft mud herself, over to the small figure curled up in a ball half in a puddle, crying and scared. " Kurt? Kurt what hapa- " she cut off as she glanced up at the hoard of teenage boys. Some were carrying bats, others pieces of metal, or switch-bladed knives. She grabs the bundle on the ground, carefully but firmly, and lifts it up while straightening herself to her full height.
The mob stops, glaring at the figure. " Stupid old woman, why do you even care about that little furry freak of nature? " Says one of the tallest boys, brandishing a metal bat in his hand and a knife on his belt. She silenced him with a look so stern it would have sent a club bouncer running. Silence was broken again by a boy yelling rather rude swears, immediately joined by his peers. The roar of insults was nearly deafening.
The ball of soppy coat and mussed blue fur in the woman's arms shakes silently as the noise increases and the gang approaches with new confidence in numbers and their weapons held high. " Leave now, or I will not be held responsible. " she yelled over the din. The crude mob moved in closer. "Fine then, have it your own way… " the woman said, standing the boy up in what little grass there was in the mud-yard and grabbing a rake from off the ground, spinning it around and catching one of the boys in the jaw. The others backed away as the grubby mess-of-a-punk wheeled in pain at the bruise swelling up on his cheek. " Scatter the lot of you before I call the police! " she said, brandishing her rake like a club.
The gang makes a sort of muffled retreat, muttering complaints and curses on the way. The tallest and most obviously the leader leans down on his way by to the little one the woman had so quickly defended, and whispers " She wont always be around you know, I will make sure of it. And when she isn't there to save you, your freaky little head is mine! " on the last word he received a quick swipe to the back of the head with the rake before stumbled off after the rest.
"Kurt…ist du alright? You aren't hurt, are you?" the woman says, gathering up the bag of bread which had been thrown thankfully into a dry spot on the lawn, and gently prodding the soaking wet and muddy child into the house. Now and then she glanced over her shoulder to make sure the would-be attackers were leaving.
Once inside, the boy's mother closed and latched the door, which looked like it had seen better days, with burn-marks on the metal sheet covering the wooden door and more dents than one could imagine on one front door. It didn't look too un-similar from the way the outside of the house looked. Inside Kurt was brought over to the fire place where the helped him pull off his soaking wet cloak and shirt. She grabbed a warm dry towel from a shelf in the linens closet and began drying him off with it. After a while of silence broken only by the crackle of the fire, the mother spoke. "Well? What was that all about then?" she asked.
"Verzeihung Mutter, I didn't mean that to happen! I just wanted to show you I could get the bread from town like the other boys do for der mutters!" his eyes filled up with tears again and he buried his face into his mothers lap.
"Shh, shhh…" she whispers, carefully drying off the blue fur that covered his entire body and cleaning the mud gently from behind his pointed ears. "Now then, das ist enough crying." She said, standing him up gently and cleaning his face with a rag. "It's all okay now. No more being sad. Your father will be home soon, so help me fix dinner okay?"
Kurt nodded quietly and followed his mother into the kitchen.