Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. Marvel does. I own Mina. But not in a weird way. I also own her family. That might be in a weird way, but I'm not sure. You'll have to ask them. Oh, wait, you can't. You fail.
Chapter 1
It was a generally peaceful evening. The summer sun was glowing a blazing orange as it set, the nightingales were cooing languidly in their perches, and a warm breeze blew the vibrant green leaves in a flutter of motion. A more peaceful evening was hard to find, excepting the occasional crash and odd scream from the house on 14 Graymalkin Lane.
Mina Felisin's father had once again tossed her across the living room in a fit of rage. Her mother wept helplessly in the doorway as he stalked over to Mina's crumpled form lying on the table. Mina's father picked her up by her hair and started screaming in her face things incomprehensible to her battered head.
"Jesus, Bryce! She's only 10 years old! You're going to kill her!" pleaded Mina's mother. Immediately, his attention was diverted to her, and he dropped Mina back onto the coffee table like a sack of potatoes.
"Why do you care what I do to her?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous. "You've got another daughter, a better daughter. This one-" he turned and gave Mina a kick with his foot "- is stupid, anti-social and ugly. Amber, on the other hand, is all the things that Mina isn't, and she's a year younger than her."
At this statement, Amber, who had until then been positioned quietly in the chair in the corner of the room, smirked and gave Mina an accusing glare, who just blinked at her. What her father said was partly true, she was anti-social. The kids at her school always made fun of her because of the bruises she always came to school with, so she just didn't talk to them. Instead, she preferred to be with nature, in particular the animals in it. They didn't judge; they didn't question. They accepted her for her, and if they didn't it was because they were frightened of the fact that she was human, not because of her differences. She was definitely not stupid in any case, at least no more stupid than Amber was. The accusation that she was ugly was exaggerated, but once again not entirely fiction. She was tall and gangly for her age, with auburn hair that far too often looked uncombed and lanky. However, she'd grow out of her awkward state eventually. Her eyes were a soft, deep blue that would, were she older, stop any man in his tracks. She wasn't totally ugly, but her father, Bryce, would find any excuse to make Amber seem better than Mina. Mina's mother didn't quite like what happened whenever Bryce got angry about it and tried her best to stick up for Mina whenever she could.
Mina's mother shrunk back a bit at the tone in Bryce's voice. "Even if she is, why do you have to beat her up about it? Maybe if you stopped—" She broke off as Bryce, in one angry step, seemingly leaped across the room and shoved her against the doorframe.
"I do it because I caused you to give birth to her and I'm ashamed of it. She'll never change. I'm just trying to make sure she doesn't become one of those… those mutant freaks. It seems the ugly ones are always the freaks."
Mina's mother turned to look at Mina, mainly to pry her eyes away from Bryce's predatory gaze but also to take a closer look at her daughter. "Mina's not a mutant. She can't be. We would know… My daughter could never be a mutant, she…" She broke off, painfully considering the possibility.
Mina lay on the table, her breathing short and interrupted by hacking coughs, also pondering the possibility of being a mutant, but not painfully. She considered the possibility of getting away from her family, escaping the pain and the blame. But she knew she could never leave her mother. She was her mother's firstborn, her first love. Mina would never break her mother's heart by leaving.
Besides, she wasn't a mutant. At least she didn't think she was.