II. Warmth and Food
Forget the cat's eyes and legs; forget the claws and spines and venom, and the overblown immune and digestive systems; forget the healing factor that only works when I'm comatose.
Sometimes I think my real mutant "power" is running away.
I ran away from home after becoming a mutant. Well, I guess I was born a mutant, but it was my dad's fault that I got a dose of the radiation from Magneto's mutant-making machine at Ellis Island. That's what brought all this weird shit out. Who knows, if it hadn't been for dear old dad, maybe I'd have been as normal-looking as most mutants out there.
Mutants among us. Cue the Twilight Zone music.
After I got shot by some hunter who may or may not have thought I was just an animal, I tried pretty hard to stay away from civilization. I had a few encounters, all of which drove in the fact that I'm not something you want to bring home for a nice family dinner.
Then I met up with Xavier's gang, ran away from Xavier's gang, met up with Magneto's gang, ran away from Magneto's gang, met up with Xavier's gang again, ran away from Xavier's gang again... You get the picture.
I'd been running for so long, I forgot what it was like to have a home. Until I finally found one again.
I had it good. I'm talking regular meals and a warm den good. Sunday paper good, even. Who'da thunk it, Melody Run-Away-From-Freakin'-Everyone Morgan had an actual human being for a friend.
He didn't start out that way, of course. I think maybe I scared him as bad as he scared me, that first time we saw each other. I'd settled--temporarily, I thought--in a good-sized stretch of some wildlife preserve somewhere in the northeast. I should have kept going, but....
I mean, this place was perfect. Well, perfect if you're a feral mutant like me. I don't need a lot of space to live in--it's not like I've got any personal possessions, after all--but I do like a lot of room to roam. Makes it easier to run away and hide, when you get the feeling you're being watched.
But the only time recently that I'd had to worry was when the other large, furry predator-types came around. There was a small pack of real, live honest-to-National-Geographic wolves in the same area. But they knew about me, same as I knew about them, and we pretty much kept our distance from each other.
I can run a good ten, twelve miles in a day, and this wild land had nice, cozy shelters in almost every corner that I might find myself. There was a copse of trees, for example, that had grown so closely entwined that it was like a little tent inside. Almost waterproof in the summer, but chilly in the winter. In another place, I had a lean-to woven from fallen branches, which I piled grass, dirt, and leaves on top of to camouflage. Before long, it was a handy little pocket in the ground, overgrown with brush. Stuff like that--little places to hide, to sleep; nothing permanent.
Then there was this cave--a real, actual Batman and Robin job. Without the bats. The floor was packed earth, so no dust to get in my fur, which I hate. Dead bugs and icky shit like that, but nothing I couldn't clean out. Pretty soon, I had it lined with soft grass, which is easier to sleep on than the hard ground.
I didn't mean to make it a home. It just kind of... happened.
Warmth and food. Food and warmth. Nothing else matters. Unless you happen to be a wild mutant pretending that she really couldn't care less if she never saw another human face again. Key word there: pretending.
It was such a pretty day outside. Warm sun, a few clouds. There's a little clearing about a half-mile east of my cave, where this purely gigantic chunk of slate sits right in the middle, as if Nature decided she needed a footstool. I used it to sunbathe.
Not like I can actually get a tan, not covered head to toe in thick black fur--except for the webbing on my dorsal spines. That's the only bare skin I've got. And it feels oh, so good to let the sun beat down on it. I'm not really sure when I started my little ritual, but every few days, if there was a good sun out, I'd go lay out on that sunning rock, raise my little sail, and just bask.
I'd have been purring, if I could have.
But, see--that was my mistake. That, and staying in one place too long.
So like I said, there I was, laid out on that rock, soaking up the crisp mid-autumn sun. You'd think I would have heard this fellow coming through the brush, but some folks have a natural talent for quiet. That, and I was half asleep, and too content to bother moving.
I opened up one eye, wondering what sort of animal was passing through--and I saw him. He was dressed in hiking boots, jeans and a blue flannel shirt, he had bright red hair, and he was holding something that looked like a television antenna on steroids. His mouth dropped open, his face turned stark white, and he started backing away like he'd seen a ghost. Of course, I wasn't much better. I let out a godawful shriek, jumped off the rock, and ran like there was no tomorrow.
Like the idiot that I am, I went back to my cave.
He must have tracked me, I suppose. Not too difficult, not when there was enough soft, damp ground to hold my footprints. My legs are bent at the knees and ankles, and I walk balanced on my toes. Makes for great running, jumping, and kicking, but how many two-legged big cats are there in the world? And when I go on all fours, it gets even better. Hand prints on one end, paw prints on the other.
Just think of the fun I could have with Bigfoot hunters.
A few days later, when I woke up in the morning, there was something on the ground just outside the mouth of the cave. I didn't spot it at first, but something just wasn't right. When I inched out, crouching, my spines erect in fright, my hand touched it. I jerked back, blinked, picked it up, and giggled a little.
It was a hairbrush. A red hairbrush. No wonder I hadn't seen it--I'm colorblind when it comes to red, part of my altered vision. I've gotten used to it, I guess; it's not like I mind being able to see in the dark, after all.
But... A hairbrush? Of all the silly little things this guy could have left me to say Hello....