CAJUN CINNAMON
Book One of the Annwn Ryu Cycle

Chapter XXI / Chapter 21

"Transcendence"

"I am most displeased." the voice was soft and calm, even and reasonable - yet utterly frightening on some basic, fundamental level.
"Forgive us, obayun." Clad in black from head to toe, black of hair and eye, the second figure bowed deeply from a kneeling position.
The first figure did not turn, simply uttered a faint sigh. Control, even for him, came at a price.
"What is the status of the vessel?"
"It will reach port in an hour, obayun."
"See to it that it is well hidden. And to the rest. Go."
With another kneel-bow, the second man backed from the room, never rising from his knees.
His master had been tolerant, and he would accomplish his mission, or die in the trying.

Logan sat with his back to the wall, alert, as he felt the small vessel moving slightly with the tides. His enhanced senses detected voices, speaking in Japanese. There was a slight increase in heat to the outboard engine. Someone had forgotten to deliver their dirty laundry to the shipboard cleaners again. All comments that pointed toward a common awareness, occurring only on a mission.
He frowned to himself, concentrating his efforts on being prepared for anything.
Meanwhile, Cayanne was sitting next to him, watching the door with an intent expression on her mobile face.
Unobtrusively, the older mutant studied the younger. For reasons even he was unsure of, he was able to extend an emotion very
difficult for him - trust.
Years of living largely on his own, with only wary contact with the world around him, had helped make the mutant known as Wolverine an extremely skilled observer. He was always aware of his surroundings - his turbulent and often violent past had
hammered home the lesson to never let down his guard.
Trusting in others was a rare occurrence for him. He had few friends, fewer close friends. Even his contacts among the X-Men,
mutants like himself, did little to ease his wary alertness.
Again, Logan glanced at the Cajun teen-ager next to him.
She was a newcomer to his small circle of friends, and by all his experience, would bear careful watching.
But somehow, the younger mutant had broken the mold, challenged his rules of survival, which on many levels puzzled him.
Always before, Logan had allowed himself to trust in a friendship only after time, often considerable time.
And usually, after sharing combat experiences, staying on the same side, living in a similar world.
So why, and how, had he come to trust her?

Zane and the others were alone in an attic room, aware of the downpour outside, the distant booms of thunder and rattles of the windows did little to soften the solemn mood.
"Cayanne's missing." Zane said, finally, breaking the somewhat ominous silence. There was a slight stir, then he plunged on,
lightning momentarily setting his stunning blue eyes aflame with violet and gold.
"Was it...them?" It was Fabian, running a hand through his reddish-blonde hair, that spoke, from where he sat near the taller Graham. He was disturbed by the news - they all were.
"If it was, they would have come after us all." Brendan answered, frowning.
"Yeah." agreed Zane, glancing over at Liam, who was silent and still.
"We have to go look for her! We just found her again..." Brendan added, expression part angry, part worried.
"We do not have a good starting place." Liam's soft, shy tones were concerned, even a little fearful.
"Yeah, all we know is somebody snatched her from the grounds." growled Zane, angrily. "So much for Xavier's word!"
"He wasn't part of it." Liam was certain, and none among the young mutants doubted him. "He didn't feel like he was lying." He rested a hand on the shoulder of the tense, volatile Zane, who looked over at him, then closed his eyes.
"We can't just sit here and do nothing!" growled the stunningly attractive older boy. "We have to think of something, somehow. We can't give up."
There was a brief, tense silence.
"We should keep an eye on the X-Men." said Fabian, after a moment.
"Yeah, if anything gets picked up, they'd do something." agreed Brendan, sitting up a bit straighter.
"But how can we be sure they are not responding to another situation entirely?" asked the ever-rational Graham, leaning a little forward. "We are not part of their planning or actions."
"We aaare nnnott paaart of thiiier consiiideraaation." the distinctive tones came from the ceiling where the dragon-gargoyle-demon member of their group, Justin, hug upside-down as if a very large bat. "Theyy wiiill not consssullt usss."
Zane scowled, then grinned, somewhat wolfishly. "Then we watch them close, especially Summers. He's Xavier's errand boy, so the moment anything is up, he'll jump. We'll be there, watching."
"Yeah!" agreed Brendan, with a smile.
"Like always, we'll stay hidden in plain sight." Zane grinned at the groans at his intentional pun.
Outside, thunder boomed, and lightning lit the roiling sky.

The silence of the laboratory was almost absolute, save for the burbling of liquids in their beakers or the occasional pop of electricity. It was an atmosphere most any scientist would appreciate, the steady calm of reasoned and ordered thought.
But to the wheelchair-bound man in the midst of the apparatus, it was almost irritating.
He glanced toward the glass windows, high up on the wall, and reluctantly admitted to himself it was likely that the arrangement he had forged was now out of his control.
His staff almost fell over one another to avoid being assigned to the project they had struggled with, fought to maintain, past grasping bureaucrats who just wanted to maintain the status quo to close-minded military midgets who feared change more than bullets.
Every day, every single day, that they did not recover their powerful and dangerous ally's property, someone was seriously injured at best.
At worst, they suffered a variety of hideous deaths, almost as if their enigmatic ally was simply toying with them, using freakishly dangerous forms of destruction on human bodies.
He looked down at the beaker in his hand and resisted the impulse to smash it into the table in a fit of pique.
How had things gotten so completely out of his control?
Once, he had been respected. Certainly, he had been feared. That was a necessity.
But he had to face the facts.
Weapon X had been a failure, a miserably uncontrollable failure, and those damnable, cowardly louts had abandoned him!
With a careful movement of his left hand, he set the beaker down and forced his features to unreadable calm.
But he had new allies now, powerful ones, who could at least glimpse his vision. Those that couldn't were among the first he sacrificed to the burning wrath of his most dangerous ally of all.
After the escape of Weapon X - that animal - it almost cost me everything. The facility is a complete loss. All the research data - all those years of work! The wheelchair-bound man's thin lips curled in a faint snarl before he could control them. They called me a failure, stopped all my research, regulated me to second-class experiments a first-year intern could accomplish! The fools! Behind his expressionless mask, he raged at the injustice of it, the sheer stupidity. But they underestimated my genius, my resolve. Now, all I need is to recover his precious property, and I will have my revenge.
His rage calmer now, the wheelchair turned and he regarded the figure on the table with a steady gaze.
Thin, agonized sounds, little more than mewlings, escaped the tortured flesh despite the gag.
With a thoughtful pause, he lifted the scalpel from the metal tray on the sterile tray and regarded it momentarily. After years of service, years of brilliant successes, he had eschewed all other names but his professional title. It seemed fitting, even reasonable, that his associates call him by his title alone - what right had they to even know the name he had been given at his birth? Yes, more rational this way. Clearer. Cleaner.
As blood spattered and the mewlings became sharp, thin sounds, he congratulated himself on an excellent choice.
Hidden by the scalpel and drill, the Professor smiled.

"I don' know 'bout you, mon ami, but I am bored." Cayanne said suddenly, frowning at the doorway. "What dey plan t' do, bore us t' death?"
Logan smothered a smile, shrugged stoically. "Not much to do in a ship hold, darlin'." he said, though very privately he was thinking much the same.
The black-on-black eyes, marked with a flare of silver at the center, brightened. Rummaging in her battered old trenchcoat, she finally pulled out a very well-used pack of playing cards and held them up triumphantly. "Poker?" she suggested, all innocence.
Her companion grinned at her despite himself, and cocked an eyebrow. "If you're anything like your pa, this could be interesting." he said, deadpan, and the girl laughed.
"Worse." she warned, a sparkle of mischief in her eyes.

Hatch was abundantly aware of how some coveted his position, yet in honesty, did not truly understand the reasoning of that want.
He was the confidant, companion, and loyal observer of his liege lord.
Even a friend.
Yet, this frantic want, it's logic eluded him. To gain one's desire, one must first seek the truth of it. Not the image of success, but the substance of it should be a guide, not a master.
Hatch's age allowed him some glimpses into the minds of men, long years of experience sometimes brought the edge of exasperation, yet he never fully gave into it.
The more men succumbed to want, the greater misery that inevitably followed.
He watched, inscrutable, as men hurried about, seeking to speed the vessel to it's final destination and allowing him some time to consider.
Despite being precariously close to want, Hatch did want to see his master's goal achieved.
There was so much upheaval, so much confusion, and yes - inevitably - desire. Greed. Want.
He was fortunate, in that he had long since ceased to pursue wealth, or even passion, for it's own sake.
Instead, he focused himself on his own goals, while assisting his master - yes, his friend - in his.
They had waited a very, very long time to locate their precious cargo, though the girl-child was an unexpected addition.
He glanced up, senses detecting the compressed signs of human life ahead.
Harbor, landfall, then a slow and careful process would begin, one that would bring about changes the likes of which those around him only glimpsed.
Yet that effort had lifted them from want by giving them instead a goal that had spanned millennium, and set them on the road toward wisdom.
As he motioned dark-clad figure forward and nodded silently toward the hold, he had high hopes.
Yet his concerns remained.
His master, his friend, had placed all his dreams into this for so long, he had come to accept the possibility of rejection, of refusal, of loss. Had he not lost so much already?
Though he had studied all he could find on their reluctant passenger, there were no guarantees.
There was much to be said for allying one's self with freedom, passion was, after all, the force that allowed humanity to transcend destiny, to change their world and their future.
Almost unwillingly, he glanced over at the hold, saw his messenger descending, and asked a question he had not asked in centuries, one that filled him with an almost-forgotten excitement and curiosity, a passion even he was not immune to.
What destiny will he choose?
He looked forward to seeing the answer unfold.