"Come, I show you where I grew up". Azazel said standing and beckoning Raven to follow with a jerk of his head.
"I don't know if I'm feeling up to a trip to the USSR Azazel…" Raven said warily.
"Neither do I…" Azazel replied walking over to the globe sitting on Raven's old desk. "I'm still a little sore from Emma's big exit." He said rubbing his lower back "I meant, I show you on this."
"Oh…I see." She said walking over to join him.
"My village here" He said tapping the Caucasus mountain range in Eastern Europe. "When I was born it was still very hard place to get to… very remote…It's name, in English means Village of the Magicians…
When I grew up there were many people in my village who had special gifts. Some could hear thoughts like Mr Xavier and Emma…others could make things move like Magento. Some looked ordinary…others… " Azazel waved a hand at himself, a small smile on his face. "…different…"
"And they accepted the ones that didn't look normal?"
"Normal is… relative term. But yes. Outcasting children because they looked different…this was never considered. Maybe because of remoteness of our village…our gene pool was smaller and any …how you say? Recessive x-genes became more… common. Most people in village were related to someone who looked different or had special gift…and why would you fear your family? Besides the ones with magic protected the rest from bandits and other threats. Our village had been there for centuries… maybe even millennia…and the elders say that our tribe had been there even longer…and the old stories say that we were descended from the forest spirits…"
"If you were accepted there why did you leave?" Raven asked feeling a pang of jealously, if she'd been lucky enough to be a surrounded by a whole community that not only accepted but exalted her as a child she'd certainly never have left.
"I was young and curious about the world…and by the time I was teenager I was bored and restless with life in village. Merchants would sometimes pass through our village Have you heard of the Silk Road?"
Raven shook her head. History wasn't her thing.
"It is -was- trading route that unites Europe and Asia.. part of route ran through the Caucasus mountains and passed close to my village. Sometimes merchants stopped at village inn for night. Of course, when outsiders came the ones like myself had to disguise ourselves or hide. I used to put on clock and hood and ask them questions about their journeys. They told me tales of the life outside the village…there were many things I wanted to see and experience for myself…"
"What about your wife.. you said you were married? …Is she still at the village?…Did she come with you when you left?"
Azazel didn't look at her for a while, he stared at the globe his fingers tracing the over the mountain range. "No." He answered finally.
"What happened?"
"Shaw."
Raven opened her mouth to ask another question but Azazel continued.
"But that is… story for another time I think."
Raven shut her mouth again. Badgering Azazel for personal information when he wasn't in a mood to share was pointless. He was even more cagey than Erik in that regard. After some time passed she sighed and turned her attention to another equally troubling subject.
"Azazel we have to find the Angel and Janos and tell them the truth about what Emma did."
"I know…but how to find them? And what to do about Emma when we do.…? We had narrow escape last time."
"Perhaps we can borrow Erik's helmet?"
"You think he'll agree to this?"
"I didn't say we should ask him. Besides it's not like he'll be using it anytime soon…and he doesn't even really need it anymore…"
"You make good point….We borrow for short time yes, and leave note maybe?"
Raven smiled innocently. " Exactly."
"Maybe you could try asking your brother for help again also. It would give us place to start and he maybe in better mood now…"
"I doubt it." While Erik was still unconscious she had asked Charles for help in locating and warning the other Brotherhood members. Charles had refused initially stating that Cerebro was still broken and he couldn't be of any assistance. Later he'd walked in on her and Azazel when she was making the same request of Hank. Even the mere memory of the conversation left her feeling irritated ..
"Raven.. Perhaps it would be best if you just forgot about the others…" Charles had said." You and Erik got mixed up with a bad crowd, and this is the perfect opportunity to distance yourself from them."
"Mixed up?!" She'd asked incredulously. How could Charles be so sincere yet condescending and naive at the same time? "Erik was their leader, he was the one doing the 'mixing'!" The idea that Erik could ever be peer pressured into anything was almost funny. "We were a family- well close to one.. and obviously not Emma…but Angel and Janos were true friends. I'm not just going to walk away from that! I'm certainly not going to forget about them! " She'd spat at him disgusted "How can could even say that?!"
"I forbid you to go looking for those-those- " Charles had stuttered unsure what to describe them as . Criminals would have been apt, but he settled for something more diplomatic "People." He managed to make the noun sound like a dirty word.
"She is not child." Azazel spoke up from where he'd been leaning against the wall, watching the exchange. "You cannot not tell her what to do…or where to go."
Charles had narrowed his eyes at Azazel. "Mr Azazel, I am grateful for what you did for us back in Arizona, and if you feel the need to track down your 'friends', then that is entirely your business…" Raven felt her eye twitch. Charles only used formal titles when he was about to say something insulting "..but I will not let you corrupt my sister or elope with her on some kamikaze mission to join a group of outlaws!"
Raven had been about to burst into a furious tirade in defence of their friends when Azazel had simply shrugged and said "People with easy lives are often narrow minded."
Raven had actually been taken aback by the dark look on Charles' face and quickly suggested to Azazel that they return the medical bay to keep watch over Erik. She had a horrible suspicion that Azazel might have spent the rest of his life thinking he was a Koala if she hadn't.
The conversation with Charles hadn't progressed much past that point and Raven doubted it ever would. Raven sighed - she had a talent for attaching herself to the most impossible of men. Right now she wasn't keen on any more conversations with either Erik or Charles. Raven pulled a stash of writing paper from her desk and began scribbling two farewell letters. One to her brother, and one to Erik. She'd ask Azazel to deliver Erik's one, even though it was cowardly. Maybe in a couple weeks she'd be able to face him in person…but she couldn't contemplate doing it now.
It had been four months since Raven and Azazel had departed in search of Emma and left Erik behind. Erik, having been judged relatively physically stable by Celia, had been allowed to relocate from the medical bay to the guest cottage in the grounds of the mansion. In the beginning he still felt faint when he got up too fast and breathless when walked too far, and seemed to spend more time sleeping than he could remember. To start with he needed use a wheel chair to move more than a hundred metres at a time. But at least his vision had returned to normal and there were other signs that he was healing. After another scan, Celia had also informed him that the darkspots in his brain had reduced in size, although much to Erik's chagrin he still couldn't move any metal.
Raven and Azazel had not yet managed to track down their former team mates, but had managed to retrieve a portion of the Brotherhood's funds from the numerous Sparbuch* and Swiss bank accounts that Erik had spread them over (Azazel had transported the funds back alone - somewhat to Erik's disappointment - then quickly returned to Raven in Europe). It transpired that Emma had relieved them of half the money, but her ignorance and Erik's meticulous planning had safeguarded the rest of the funds. Erik's Nazi hunting days had made him something of an expert in money laundering and he'd learnt the importance of having a contingency plan early in life. One should never put all their eggs in one basket. So the sum remaining after Emma's plundering still left Raven, Azazel and Erik as three rather wealthy individuals (for the first time in her life Raven had more disposable income than Charles). However Erik now needed to figure out something new to do with the wads of cash that he'd stashed under his bed in the guest cottage. Ideally he should reinvest it, but with all the attention both he and the Brotherhood had received lately from the US Government and the Soviets he wasn't sure if it was wise to deposit the cash in a new set of numbered Swiss accounts. If he could track Nazis through the Swiss banking system then the US government could track him and perhaps start freezing his accounts…
Raven's system of money storage wasn't any more sophisticated than his own -her share of the cash was stashed under the floorboards in her childhood room… Charles didn't know of course… if he found out they were storing funds gained by illegal activities in his home he'd likely kick them all out..or throw the money on a bonfire… Azazel had found a crag in an impenetrable cliff face stuffed his portion of the haul into it…
Perhaps when Azazel returned they could investigate some offshore banking options in Asia or Africa…somewhere out of reach of Interpool or the KGB…apparently the options in the Seychelle's were supposed to be good…or at any rate better than their current solution.
Other than that, the search for Emma and the remaining Brotherhood members was going slowly. Azazel could only teleport so far each day, and long distances left him depleted. So instead of teleporting back to the mansion they were simply telephoning Erik whenever they had news - which wasn't often.
Erik's major challenge now was coping with boredom. He had never gone so long with such a long period of forced inactivity. He'd lived a nomadic life since his parents moved from Munich when he was nine, following the loss of his father's job from the civil service shortly after the Nazis came to power. The family had stayed with his uncle in Nuremberg for a time, before all of them were finally forced to flee the country itself in the dead of night. Since then he'd been shuffling from pillar to post…some pillars had been vastly more luxurious than others. The only stationary period in his life had been the years he'd spent raising Anya in Vinnytsia along with Magda…and between study, work and parenthood he'd had little time for boredom…
Quite simply, he wasn't used to having so much time on his hands…if his full powers were back-or even if he was just back in full health- he would helping track down Emma and the others. Or seeking out other mutants to join the cause, but as it was if he left the mansion he'd just be a liability and end up passed out on a sidewalk somewhere. Not mention the fact that the CIA, KGB FIB, Arizona State Police and God knows who else were now hunting for him. In a last ditch attempt to find something to do he'd offered to help Beast with the Cerebro repairs and the rebuild of the Black Bird but received a curt "That's quite unnecessary" from the man (which coming from Hank was as good as "Go fuck yourself Lensherr"). The whole situation somewhat frustrated Erik, but he supposed he had now been indirectly responsible for breaking two of Hank's favourite toys…still he could be a great help on both projects if only Hank would allow him into the lab…
At least he and Charles were getting along better… they'd unanimously decided to avoid talking politics for awhile and were back to playing chess together most evenings.
With nothing else to do his focus had naturally turned -as it was want to these days- to Pietro. Despite himself Erik was getting attached… He found Pietro an easy child to grow fond of. Or rather an easy child for him to grow fond of. Pietro wasn't a model child by any imagining, but he was practical and loyal and caring. Erik was surprised at how often Pietro thought about his needs. He'd been keen to help Erik with any chores in the guest house when he'd seen how any activity easily tired Erik in the beginning. As a boy Erik had been always been a model student, but until Nuremberg he had been pampered and somewhat self centred. The only chore his mother had assigned him was making the bed and he'd even tried his best to get out of that. The fact that Pietro was volunteering to do chores had impressed him.
Pietro was due soon for another reading lesson. The boy was not as natural with the written word as Anya had been, but he was progressing relatively well, and Erik was mostly enjoying teaching him. Though the boy's attention span definitely needed work..
"He would learn more quickly.." Erik mused to himself "..if he would only focus on something for more than ten minutes at a time…" He had an idea for today's lesson that would hopefully fix that problem. At least it was not a day that the boy would prefer to be playing outside-heavy freezing drops of rain had been hammering the roof of the guest house since the early hours of the morning. Erik placed some more logs on the fire
A few loud impatient knocks on the front door of the guest house announced Pietro's arrival.
"Come in" Erik called. It was curious that despite Pietro's extremely impulsive nature that he did always knock. A few moments later his son clomped into the room, dripping wet.
Pietro of course hadn't thought to put on a coat. Erik frowned.
"I didn't do it!" Pietro blurted out as soon as he saw Erik's expression.
"Didn't do what?" Erik asked now confused.
"Whatever you're mad about, I didn't do it-I've been good all day - honest- you can ask Ms McTaggert….but maybe don't ask Dr McCoy because yesterday I borrowed the staple gun from his desk and Warren said that he'd be able to move his finger before I-"
"-Pietro go sit by the fire and stop incriminating yourself." Erik sighed, before quickly grabbing some towels from the bathroom and throwing one at Pietro, which landed over his head. "Here, dry yourself off before you catch a cold. Why didn't you wear a coat? "
"I don't need one…I hardly ever get sick" Pietro answered pulling the towel off his face. Erik took the other towel that he was holding and started rubbing Pietro's hair dry.
"If that's true you've been extremely lucky….you need to take better care of yourself. Sick soldiers aren't any good to a regiment" Erik chided. Why couldn't the boy remember to do simple things for his own health? What would Pietro be like when he left? Charles wouldn't be able to watch him all the time when Erik wasn't around, and Pietro was an accident magnet….what if he got really sick or injured? Erik shook the thought from his head. "Where is your coat?" he asked his son.
"In my closet…." Pietro said wrinkling his nose. Like everything else he owned, his coat was a hand me down. The moth eaten woollen thing was a relic from the Professor's boyhood and dated back to the 1940s. Pietro couldn't even imagine a younger version of the Professor liking the coat much…. Needless to say Pietro only wore it when he absolutely had to, and he wouldn't put it on unless his teeth were chattering and his fingers were going blue.
"Keeping your other clothes warm and dry? I want you to wear it next time you go outside in this kind of weather." Erik found one of his spare turtle necks and tossed that at his son too. "Put that on too."
Pietro brightened and pulled off his sodden t-shirt and quickly replacing it with Erik's turtleneck. He much preferred Erik's clothes to any that he owned even if it was miles too big.
Hope you guys had a good festive season. Ok so here's the plan. It's gonna get real fluffy for a chapter or so… :P Then we're back to some heart wrenching, then Erik's soul searching again then - FINALE!
*Sparbuch was a simple anonymous savings account, available primarily in Austria it functioned similarly to numbered Swiss bank accounts.
Silk Road - I like the idea of Azazel being older than he really appears and being around during the time of Tsars and Russian revolution…
