The grove Ororo had loved so still flourished near the small lake, and she smiled at the sight of it. This was her home, the home of her heart, the home that had nurtured her soul.
Logan was crouched next to the lake, watching ripples flow as he touched the water, expression flickering briefly to awareness then to silence.
She watched him, silent and concerned.
Cool. Comfort. Deep. swirl-eddied the thought-images suddenly, of water deep and cool, breathing down deep in a way that showed only dimly on the surface. A drink to soothe after the long hunts, to splash on soreness after the need for blood and claws.
Africa embraced Logan, and for a moment, golden awareness flickered in his deep eyes before once more darkening to hidden ambers.
Ororo knelt beside him, gently took his hand, pressing it into the soft solidness of the earth.
His gaze flickered upwards, meeting her's for an instant, and she said softly, "Earth."
Logan's head cocked to one side as image-eddy-thoughts swirled. Cool. Dark. Comfort. he drew his fingers into the moist earth, focused on whatever internal need drove him.
The water lapped gently against the shore, and Ororo watched Logan silently, feeling a surge of concern rise in her throat. But also - there was a sense of relief.
For Africa not only embraced Logan, it seemed to soothe his tormented mind in a way not even his native Canada could.
Careful not to disturb his concentration, Ororo sat down next to Logan, watching silently as he moved his hands with silent focus, digging his fingers into the loam.
Cool. Comfort. The swirl-emotion-thoughts were a struggle to make a connection.
Careful to not make any sudden moves, Ororo spoke softly. "You feel the call of the soil, Logan?" she half-asked. More, it was to speak to him, keep him there, rather than the internal hell he had suffered.
Comfort. Deep. Cool. His eyes flicked upwards, golden flickering awareness in the amber.
She stayed absolutely still.
Logan looked back down at the water, his brow furrowed with concentration.
Hear. Listen. Hear. The eddies of that thought were almost wistful.
"What do you hear, Logan?" Ororo said his name as often as she could, hoping that he would sieze upon his identity, find his way back to it.
Yet in a tiny, guilty corner of her mind she wondered how he would be if he did not.
He lifted his head, staring across the lake, then shifted his weight to regard the distant mountians, the softly wind-blowing plains.
Song. Hear. Listen.
Ororo moved a bit closer, rested a gentle hand on his forearm.
The muscles tensed only slightly, then relaxed as he regarded her.
Amber in his eyes. Golden. Amber.
Need. Listen. Wait.
She spoke gently, responding to the urgancy in his voice. "I will speak to the tribe, Logan. After the rains come..."
Hunt. There was another need, the need for sustanance but also the raw, primal force of den-territory and defense, safety and establishing one's place.
Ororo saw the brief glint of fangs, the ripple and flow of muscles as Logan rose with lion's grace to his feet. His claws extended, then retracted, a gesture of anticipation.
Need. Hunt. Back. Soon. the eddies swirled, and Logan's gaze was drawn once more to the plains.
"Logan?" Ororo watched him as he scented the air, turning his eyes to her momentarily, then back to the open the distant, moving herds and tan-brown, dappled plains.
"Be careful." the Windrider whispered.
But he was gone.
Moving swiftly and gracefully along the edge of the plain, Logan kept low to the ground, exulting in the honest scent of his surroundings.
He tossed the constricting bonds that held to his chest to the ground, allowing the soft breeze to caress his skin, telling him tales of what surrounded him.
Bands across the chest, pain, fear...
He snarled, extending his claws and slashing angrily at the fragment-memory. The image angered and puzzled him, whirring in his head like angry bees, forcing Logan to shake his head violently to clear it.
Crouching down, he saw the pushing, shoving, strong-smelling brown beasts that huddled together.
Then he scented the stealthily moving hunters closing downwind.
Masked by the gently waving, high golden grass - which smelled dry and brittle - the four-legged hunters were light and tawny, moving with elegent danger. Their stalk was patient, slow, for although the prey was plodding and moved almost clumsily, sheer size and number worked against predation.
Logan's fangs showed in a dangerous snarl. His prey! His!
All she could do was hold his hand while the world went mad.
The sky was the color of bloodstained tears, and the grinding whirrs of those - things - had finally faded. Even trees crunched beneath the metal, but they passed by.
Passing from pallet to pallet, she touched each body, trying to urge life back into Scott's cooling skin. He looked so young then, not much older than her, as though death leeched any vibrancy, any age, from his form.
He was the third one.
Jean was kneeling next to him, green eyes flat and dead as she tried to comprehend the enormity of what she had just lost. She would never understand. Never recover.
Half of her was gone.
She moved with well-trained silence to the side of the room where Nathan and Stryfe lay only feet apart. Somehow, in the end, they found that they could understand one another better as allies than enemies.
Of course, they hadn't ever told her the whole story, but that didn't matter. She felt them touch minds, more like twins than eternal foes, in a kind of bewildered confusion, hanging onto one another, trying to make sense of this dying, but they faded peacefully away.
There was a distant boom! and plaster, along with alarming shards of metal, tumbled to the floor.
"Jeannie's gone." The voice was a harsh rasp as she moved back to her patient.
And she was.
The green eyes that had once held the Phoenix's fire were now dead, empty, lifeless.
Another ka-thoom! and she winced.
"Yer gonna do it again, ain'tcha?" It was only half a question.
"I not know, mon ami." came the weary reply. "Not sure how dis work - maybe I make worse."
"Nah, this's been a long time in comin'." A painful, hacking cough, and blood oozed from his mouth. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. "It was too far 'long, you said, and you were right."
A half-guilty silence.
"Lissen, kid, pass me that bundle - no, that'n." He grinned, almost ghoulishly, at the reflexive balling of her fist at the "kid" comment. "Thanks." His eyes pierced her. "Now get outta here while ya can."
"I t'ink I could take some'a ya..."
"Nah, kid. Ain't no point. Now get goin'."
"What dat?" she indicated the bundle he was unwrapping.
"Git." but it was fond.
Eyes closed, she clenched her fists, and suddenly...just wasn't there.
With reverent fingers, Logan ran his fingers up the hilt of the ancient katana, thinking, Mariko...
And plunged it into his abdomen, wrenching it left, right, and up before unconciounsness floated up to catch him.
But her arms caught him then, and the air was filled with crysanthumums....
Logan kept low to the ground, carefully watching the herd. He had already rolled several times in the light-coating, warm dirt to mute his scent, and now was carefully choosing his prey.
The large bull was dismissed as a target - he needed something that could be dragged back to the den, and it was far too large.
Flies buzzed and darted, but he ignored them, aware that the four-legged hunters had stopped a few yards off. One, the lead female, had her muscles bunched under her, placing each velvet paw precicely, tasting the wind as she guided the lesser members of her pride forward.
He bared his fangs in irritation, unsheathing his claws, calculating the distance between the young male he had selected and himself.
The other hunters wisely stayed back, and Logan suddenly charged into the herd with a roar, sending the panicked grazers running in all directions. Leaping on his target, he tightened his arms around the thick neck, bit down hard as he slashed with his claws, bringing it down, held on until life twitched loose through it's absurdly spindly legs.
Still tasting the sweet-rock-fire taste of blood in his mouth and feeling the triumph of his hunt, Logan tilted back his head and howled his victory to the azure, soft sky.
Then, he settled into feeding.
The lead female came close, growling, seeing this two-leg as another weak hunter that needed false claws to make the kill, slashed at him, challenging his right to the kill.
Logan punched her hard in the face, heard a yowl of suprise, snarled a warning.
She circled him, clearly not knowing what to make of this odd thing that had entered her pride's territotry.
He ignored her, relishing the rich, smooth taste of the kill's warm liver, still full of it's now-fled life's blood.
A hiss, an experimental bat of a paw, claws extended.
Logan blocked it effortlessly, grabbed the female by the ears, snarled in her face.
"Mine!" he growled, feeling the odd imparitive of the word.
The green-gold eyes dialated, fangs were bared, and the age-old ritual of the staredown began.
Logan forced her gaze away with only his will.
Huge form, cat-like fur, savage, cruel, claws....NO!
He shook his head at the strange feeling of not-pack kill-territory that rose, then was overwhelmed with wrongness to be either cut out or cut down. Then he shoved the strange image away and returned to feeding.
With a growl, the lead female led two of her three underlings away.
One remained, and Logan ignored her for a time.
Then he glanced back.
The tawny-furred creature was submissive, making herself as small as possible, clearly hoping for scraps. Her ribs were clearly visible, as were cuts and welts.
Low in pack. he thought.
And then he saw the evidence of cubs.
Out of season? Against the will of lead-female? The young one was lucky to be alive.
He rumbled to himself, then cut loose a good portion, uttering a soothing sound, extending his bloody hand, meat dripping warm fluid into the dirt.
Timidly, the young female edged forward, ears down to show her submission, tail almost dragging the ground.
Logan made another encouraging sound, and felt her teeth close on his offering, carefully.
He made an approving noise, and the female backed away.
When she left, he ate his fill, then rose and stretched.
Sniffing the air, he found himself following the low-ranked lioness, trailing her to the edge of the plains, then freezing.
He heard strange sounds when he came to the rocks, sounds that confused but did not frighten him. Sounds that were...were almost familiar. Flickers of images, of movement and life and growth - no - mustn't...
Confusion.
Mustn't?
Logan found the young female's den, and the two squalling cubs she had fought the odds to keep alive. They were still young, eyes barely open, as they wobbled about.
Uttering a low chuffing sound, Logan picked up one cub, then the other.
One was strange-colored.
No-color.
White.
He sniffed it, recieving a purr for his efforts.
The female rose, looking alarmed.
He started for the tiny nook's entrance, smiled ferally when she began to follow him.
Then he glanced up, seeing the graying clouds gathering, the soft beat of thunder.
Rain. Cool. He recognized the coming of this, and led the nervous young female down the ridge.
Logan looked into those green-gold eyes.
Green-growth. Cool. Water. Den. Safe. The image-thoughts were patient. It took several times before he knew she understood.
But he glanced back at the stones.
Hearing them.
Hearing....something.