X- Men Evolution
Destiny Magics
A/N okay, here. Hope you braced yourself ;). It took a lot of thinking before I finally got this to seem right to me. I wanted some of the things you find out about the dragon seem surprising.
Now, I should tell you that the time of year outside here has no importance to my story whatsoever; it follows its own timeline. I did, however, match the year in my story to the one out here, just to make things easier. So, here we go!
Disclaimer: I do not own X- men: Evo.
7. A Past of Shadows and a Call of Light
"March 13, 2003. Funny, I guess, that I can't remember my own name but I can recall my exact date of birth."
"Vait… zhat is vhen you vere born?" Kurt looked at the dragon. "But… zhat vould make you nine."
"Yes." The dragon nodded.
"You're… very mature for a nine year old."
The dragon blinked. What was that supposed to mean? A compliment, or… what? "Thanks… I think." The dragon shifted the position of her tail and continued. "It's strange. So many details I can remember from that time, and my name isn't one of them. We lived in a house between medium and small in size, and in a small town near the Yukon capital. It was normally a quiet neighborhood, though it was a very bad idea to be alone in a dark backstreet. For the first few years with my parents, life seemed just about perfect. You know, I did look normal once." the dragon changed position to a sitting one and lifted her front right paw to her neck. Then she lifted something that Kurt hadn't realized she'd been wearing until then- a small black drawstring pouch on a thin black chain. It had blended perfectly with her scales. The dragon slid it of her neck and held it out to him. "Go on. Open it." Kurt took the pouch and chain, opened it, and up- ended it over one hand. Three things fell out- a gold ring that looked like a wedding ring, a folded photograph, and a small blue gem about the size of a toddler's fingernail. Kurt suddenly felt a weight on his leg and shoulder. The dragon had climbed onto him so she could also see what he held, and stood with her back legs on his leg and her front paws on his shoulder. She pointed with one paw at the blue gem. "That's a sapphire. Once at a store there was this ring I just had to have. Since my birthday was soon, my parents got it for me. After everything that happened, the metal broke and rusted… but I was able to hold on to that sapphire." The dragon then pointed at the ring. "That was Mama's wedding ring. It survived all the experiences it went through, somehow. Mama gave me that right before she… well, we'll get to that." The dragon tapped the photo. "Unfold it." Kurt did so, and smiled at what he saw. A woman with blond hair and brown eyes, standing next to a man with brown hair and blue eyes, held a very young child, about three or so, who had blonde hair and gray-green eyes. All three looked happy; all three were smiling. The dragon tapped the toddler with a paw. "That was me, once. But not anymore. Everything I once had just… shattered. Right on my fourth birthday… right after I blew out the candles." The dragon leaped off Kurt. He carefully put all three items back in the pouch, closed it, and reached out to hang it back around the dragon's neck. She closed her eyes and lowered her head as he did so. When he leaned back, she opened her eyes and lifted her front right paw to rest on the pouch for a moment before setting it back down. "Thank you." The dragon settled back into the lying position she had been in before and put her right front paw again over her left one, the small black pouch once more invisible against her black scales. "My story has only just begiun at the point of my fourth birthday. But I'd guess you already knew that. So here it goes…
"I blew out the candles. My parents started to clap for me, but… I suddenly started feeling strange. It's hard to describe… but my hands started itching and burning, my teeth started aching, and my eyes… they were in agony. It was horrible, like they were splitting open. I… don't really remember much about right then. I just remember opening my eyes… and my dad started yelling. At my Mama, I think… I don't really remember what he said, but he was really angry… horrified too, I think. And eventually he just walked out the door and didn't come back. He never came back. I lived with just Mama for another two months. The first time I looked in a mirror, I was… I don't know. I don't know how I felt. I didn't look the way I do now, not right then. But I had fangs. My eyes had changed- they looked like they do now. And on a human face, it's rather shocking." The dragon blinked her huge, diamond- shaped purple eyes at Kurt and continued. "Looking in the mirror to find that your eyes are suddenly very purple and half the size of the palm of an adults hand is… unnerving. When I looked at my hands, I saw that the back of each one had a scale embedded in it… it had grown there. I was scared. Mama told me not to worry. She said I looked just fine. At the time… I believed her. Things weren't perfect anymore, they weren't even close. But they were okay. For just two more months.
"Two months later Mama and I were walking home… I forget what we'd been doing. The street we were on was dark… there weren't any streetlights on that street… it was late at night and all the houses nearby had their lights turned off. a bunch of older kids… like maybe a gang or something… they came at us. And this is where my memories are kind of fuzzy… like I'm seeing them through cloudy water… but I think… they took Mama's jewelry. I remember that right before they came I'd been playing with her wedding ring… Mama had given it to me because I wanted to see it… and the kids didn't even look at me. One of the kids had something… I didn't see it, but I think it was a knife. They stabbed Mama in the stomach with it… and then they ran. At first I didn't know what happened. I didn't understand right away why Mama fell. I asked her if she wanted me to help her up. She said no, she wouldn't be able to get up. I asked her why not, and Mama just smiled at me. And then… then I held out her ring, and Mama said to me, 'No, you keep it. You keep it safe for me.' I put it in my pouch along with the picture and the sapphire ring that were already there. Right after that is when I saw the puddle of red… I was going to start screaming, I think, but then it started happening again. I felt strange, and my whole body started itching and burning. I don't remember much… only an intense, excruciating from inside my whole body that was like my bones were melting. And I guess they were. When I opened my eyes… I looked like this." The dragon paused, unfurling and refurling her wings for emphasis. She looked at Kurt, who was looking at her with mingled horror and sadness. The dragon looked away and continued. "My Mama saw the way I looked and told me to run. She said other people wouldn't like it and might try to hurt me. She told me that no matter what, she would always love me. Then… she was gone. Just… gone. And I was alone. A four- year old left to fend for herself. Dragon shape or no… I was defenseless. I don't remember much of how I survived. For about the next half year I wandered the streets. Sometimes people saw me, of course… I couldn't always stay hidden. Some people screamed and ran. Some people attacked me. And some people tried to capture me. Sometimes they got me. Some of the people who caught me locked me in a tiny cage and tried to take me to scientists. At least it was child's play to escape when their backs were turned. Some of the people who caught me tried to keep me as a pet. They liked what I was, but they refused to believe I was a person even when I tried to talk to them! out of all the reactions people had… I hate that the most." The dragon stretched out her front paws, unsheathed her claws, dug them into the ground and dragged them back. "I might be small, and defenseless back then, but I am nobody's pet! I'm a person!... even if I don't look like one anymore…" the dragon trailed off. Swallowing hard, she retracted her claws until they were only just visible. The dragon shook her head rapidly, and Kurt saw a teardrop drip onto the ground, where it joined other dark spots. Kurt flinched inwardly, wishing he hadn't asked her to relive this, or that he'd at least noticed when she started crying. He reached out a hand, but the dragon shifted away when it came near. "It was harder to get out of their locked houses," she continued, "But eventually I managed. After those six months or so, I'd had enough. The light patterns, which I had started seeing the moment I started looking like a dragon, were something I had gotten used to; they were distracting at first. I left the town I was born in, trying to leave the memories behind, and flew as far north as I could go without flying over water. When I got there, I stayed there. There was snow a lot of the time that I could dig dens in, and there were tundra areas with edible plants, and I learned to hunt mice. I lived like that for years. I eventually learned how to read the light patterns, which told me so many things. The light patterns bend certain ways around everything." The dragon paused and looked back at Kurt. He looked at her, feeling terrible. For that to have happened to her… The dragon flinched and looked away. "Don't look at me like that."
"Huh? Like Vhat?"
"Like… like you're sorry for me." The dragon got up and turned her back to Kurt before saying, "All of that did happen, and I might not like what happened, but all the pity in the world won't change that fact. And no one else ever cares anyway."
Kurt reached out and put one hand underneath her. "Hey, Wha-? What are you doing? Put me down!" Kurt ignored her protests and pulled her onto his lap. He put his other hand under the dragon's head and forced her to look at him. "You'll find zhat you're wrong zhere." He said quietly. "At zhe institute, ve alvays care about von anozher."
"Well in case you haven't noticed, I'm not one of you guys, I'm just visiting!"
"As long as you are vith us, you are von of us."
The dragon ceased her struggling for a moment and trembled in his hands. Then, her voice thick with an emotion he couldn't identify, she said, "Whatever." She squirmed again, and this time, he let her go.
"So," he said trying to lighten the mood, "Light bends? I zhought it vas supposed to travel in straight lines."
"Theoretically, yes. And in a vacuum, it does. But I assume you know that everything with mass has its own attractive force, it's just weak enough that we don't notice it?"
"Yes… that's high school level science. You're very bright for someone who never got to go to school."
"Light patterns. If I may continue?" Kurt shrugged, and the dragon went on. "Now, this attractive force is more or less the same thing that you call gravity on objects that are large enough to notice it, like the Earth. And gravity, as it has been seen around black holes, bends light. However, the light that smaller amounts of gravity bends is not noticeable. Not to anyone or anything… except me. I see every kind, every colour of light. Different colours and kinds bend differently around different things. I can see that. That is what I read. And after the five years in the Yukon, the light patterns told me I had to come here."
"Had to? Vhy?" Kurt asked her. She looked at him.
"I can't tell you that. Sorry, Eleven. But I will tell you one thing." Kurt waited silently. The dragon got up and paced back and forth in front of him for awhile, thinking. The end of her tail kept twitching. At last she stopped and stood directly in front of him. "Feral Mutants. I assume you know that the term refers to mutants who have some characteristics, traits, and behaviors of animals. I also assume you realize you are one, and I doubt it will surprise you to know that I am one as well." Kurt nodded. He was confused, but he stayed quiet. He figured she would explain why she brought this up. "You're luckier than some of the Feral Mutants out there, Kurt. Sure, you look different, but with that hologram watch of yours, people wouldn't guess you aren't normal, because you can act normal. You can repress and ignore the instinctive actions you get from your animal side. I, for one, can't. Even if there was a way to somehow make me look completely human, I can't act completely human. I walk on all fours- I have no other choice. If I get wet, I shake myself off- I actually can't stop myself from doing that. You can." The dragon, seeing Kurt become even more confused, grinned. Okay, how about a better example? No one notices anything different when you eat something, because there isn't anything different to notice. But me? Talk about strange. The way my jaw and teeth are arranged makes it physically impossible to close my mouth while I chew. Because of that, I have to tip my head back so the food doesn't fall out my mouth. And on top of that, I have to jerk my head back every time I shut my mouth to chew, otherwise I couldn't move the food around in my mouth to grind it. I bet I make a pretty disgusting dinner guest. People would notice that. But you do nothing out of the ordinary. Most of the time, the only positive proof that you're a Feral Mutant at all is the way your tail behaves!" Kurt looked at the appendage in question, which was twitching uncertainly off to his right. He looked back at the dragon, who was still grinning at him. "Your tail, as you know- I'd be shocked if you didn't- moves on its own. If you wanted to hang yourself upside down from a chandelier or something, or pick up something behind you, or hold something, you can make your tail grab what you need it to. If your mind is on it, you can control it… but when you don't pay specific attention to it, your tail does its own things, displaying your emotions to those who speak tail and whatever else it does. But that's the only thing you have to worry about. Looking at the way I behave sometimes… I guess I shouldn't be surprised that no one believed I was human. I seem to be anything but." The dragon shifted her wings again.
"I guess I have been lucky… luckier zhan you, anyvay."
"Have you? I don't know… is it better to live completely alone or better to live with people where only a rare few accept you? I've been thinking about this question for a long time, but I still can't answer it. But I do think it's better that your emotions are stronger than mine. Because I've only run away when I get scared, that's all I can do now. You can face your fear. I think that's much better. You face the worst that can happen while I run like a frightened animal. The best thing Feral Mutants benefit from is a sense of when they're in danger."
The dragon suddenly drew close to Kurt, looking him in the eye. "Trust your instincts, Kurt. They're very good. And know this: you don't have to face any kind of danger alone. I don't believe there is a single person here at the institute who won't help you when you ask. They will stand and fight with you. And I…" the dragon hesitated a moment, then continued. "I will do everything I can. That is, after all, the reason I came." Kurt stared at the dragon, the fur on his spine prickling. How did she know that he felt uneasy when darkness fell? How did she seem to know that he kept feeling a sense of danger that made his fur crawl?
"Vhat is going to happen to me?" He whispered.
"I can't tell you. I don't know. But whatever happens… we're with you." The dragon drew back and cocked her head, listening hard. "Here comes that girl… what was her name? Kitty? I think so. Things might be more difficult for those of us with physical mutations, but don't give up, Kurt. Be stronger than I was… for your sake. Pain will pass. I'll see you later. Bye, Eleven." The dragon took off, and moments later Kitty became visible through the trees.
A/N wow. That… was… long. So… what did you think? How did I do?
Eight pages, this chapter took. No wonder my arm's tired.
You know, I got a PM answering one of the questions I asked before my first chapter- the one asking what a lemon was. Now that I know, having that question before the chapter makes me feel embarrassed. But, well… how does that saying go? "He who asks is a fool for five minutes, he who does not ask remains a fool forever". Yes, that sounds right.
Anyway, please review! I'm starting to feel like I'm writing to myself here!
