WHAT CAME OF OLD BEGINNINGS:
CHAPTER 4
In the morning, Mara awoke and stretched before changing. Stretching for her meant about twenty minutes of yoga-type exercises. After her morning stretch, Mara stood up from the floor, where she had been stretching, and reached for her favorite white tank top and denim shorts to put on. The shorts where rather long guy's shorts and frayed around the bottom edge, and the tank top was a simple comfortable looking T-back tank top. Mara preferred to wear guys clothing. It was much more comfortable than the skimpy clothes most girls wore.
Mara pulled her hair back in a ponytail and wrapped a band around it. She opened her door to find her mother, Storm, standing two feet outside her door with her arms crossed.
"OH… Hey, Mom." Mara said surprised at the fact that she had not heard her approach. "You're getting' better at that, 'ya know?"
Storm was one of the few people who could sneak up on Kimara. Her enhanced senses made that difficult for anyone save her father, due to his equally enhanced senses and stealth ability, and her mother and Remy, who both had thief-like stealth.
"Is this what you are planning to wear today?" Ororo said waving at her very casual clothing.
Ororo herself was dressed in a beautiful blue dressed that matched her eyes. It was a long simple dress with thin straps and laces up the sides.
"Yeah… so?" Mara responded innocently.
"I think not, young goddess! Today you are eighteen years old and everyone in the mansion is coming to celebrate. Go put on the dress that Jean got for you. You do not want to appear lazy, now do you?"
"Why not? That dress is so uncomfortable! I have to cross my legs in it and everything!"
"I swear you are more like your father than should be allowed! I had to beg him to put on his suit as well." Ororo sighed and placed her hand on her forehead. She looked at Mara and said. "OH, and have Victoria help you with your makeup. She always does it nicely."
"I have to wear makeup too?"
"NO, but I think you should play the part of a nice young lady instead of the warrior you prefer to play."
"Okay, fine." Mara said rolling her eyes and trudging into her room. She turned to her mother for a moment. "Let me get dressed and then I'll go to Vicky."
"Don't take too long." Ororo shouted through the now closed door of Mara's room. "Guests will be here in a half and hour."
Mara slipped on the dress and heard her mother step away. She pulled out the ponytail she had formed earlier and grabbed a red hair clip to match her dress. She twisted her hair the way Betsy had shown her and clipped it up high so that it stuck out in every direction.
She turned towards the door to seek help with the makeup, which Voctoria was going to do entirely on her own since Mara knew nothing about the matter and rather preferred to keep it that way. She stopped abruptly at the shuffle of shoes against the carpet. There were two pairs.
"I can hear you guys." She said loud enough for the owners of the shoes to hear. Then she smiled wickedly and said as sarcastically as possible. "Guys please don't come in I haven't had a chance to put my dress on yet and…"
The door to her room flew open cutting off the last few words of her sentence. The two intruders jumped inside her room. They flailed about and tripped over each other falling face first onto the carpet.
The intruders were none other than the two most infamous stooges in her posse, Chris Summers and Luc LeBeau. Granted they were her best friends, but the two had a remarkable talent for spoiling a moment.
Both Luc and Chris stumbled as they attempted several times to stand upright. After many attempts they finally managed to stand with embarrassed looks on their faces. They smoothed back their hair simultaneously and looked as though nothing had happened.
"Ya know," Luc spoke gesturing to Mara with his hands and looking as slick as possible. "One of these days we'll be waiting outside your door, you'll say you're naked and you really will be, but we just… won't come!"
Chris started to nod and then dissected Luc's words revealing their meaning. He slowly turned his head to the right and down to look at the shorter boy. He gazed at him with a face that showed Luc was a true idiot. He said so.
"You're an idiot!" Chris raised a finger to Luc's mouth as he began to protest. "NO, NO, say it with me… you're an idiot."
"You're an idiot!" Luc responded smirking.
"No, YOU'RE an idiot."
"You're an idiot."
"Okay," Chris said, his frustration showing. "Say, 'I'm an idiot'"
"OH, … you're an idiot." Luc smirked childishly at Chris knowing full well what Chris had intended for him to say.
"…Just… GO! Ya Moron!"
"Oh, okay I get it, you're a moron, then." Chris said no more. He pushed Luc away and down the stairs.
Kimara rolled her eyes and moved to find . She found her in her room fussing over Victoria. Once her make-up was applied she walked with her mother out the door and proceeded to the main staircase. She was several feet in front of her mother and just about to place her foot on the first step of the staircase when she heard a voice behind her.
"Hey, Hurricane. Turn 'round. I wanna see ya." The voice belonged to her father, Wolverine.
Mara obeyed and turned to face her father. Logan gasped at the sight. The dress Kimara wore was a fire engine red, figure clinging, silk dress, gathered up on one side making the hem line a severe angle. The dress had several thick straps that wove themselves through each other. It was low cut and rather short. Ruby glitter was encrusted in a circular pattern all over the dress. On her feet rested a pair of red strap pumps.
"Oh hell no!" Logan said shocked and a little angry. "I don't think so, over my dead body. Why don't ya go put on some shorts and a tank or something, something comfortable that covers ya?"
"Told you." Mara said to her mother as she approached the quarrel.
"She ain't… Is she…?" Logan stopped and looked closely at Gata's face. "Are you wearin' make-up?" Sure enough she was. She had red bronze and a glittery purple on top of her eye and slightly under it. The makeup gave her a cat-eye effect. Red lipstick tied it all together. She looked very majestic.
"Vicky put it on."
"Bright Lady, Logan!" Ororo said crossing her arms. "She is a young lady."
"Yeah, right… NO!" Logan said sarcastically. "She ain't wearin' that!"
"You look gorgeous, honey. Now go down and help set up."
Mara trotted down the stairs to see how the ballroom was coming along. Logan turned to Ororo and asked, "Who bought her that rag of a dress?"
"I did"A voice was sounded inside Logan's mind. The voice of Jean Grey Summers. "I bought her the dress, Betsy bought her the make-up, and Marie bought her the shoes."
"You're doing this to punish me for something horrible aren't ya?" Logan said out loud while clearly thinking the same question.
"Of course not, Logan. Excuse me I have to let in Sean and Piotr." With that Jean's presence in Logan's mind was gone.
Ororo stepped up to Logan and took him by the arm. "Calm down, Logan. She is growing up. Whether you like it or not." She kissed him softly on the cheek. "Let us go."
Logan started to walk down with Ororo when a voice stopped him. "Hope you like my work, Logan." It was Betsy.
"No, I don't thank you very much." Was his crude reply.
"Now, now, Logan." Betsy chastised. "You're too protective of her."
"Fer' good reason." He retorted. "I wasn't protective enough of her brother."
Betsy was shocked by his response. "I'm… sorry, Logan. I did not mean to bring up the subject."
"No… it's my fault. This is Kimara's day." Logan responded to the look of hurt on Ororo's face. "Let's go join the party, huh?"
Ororo tried her best to smile. The couple set off to their daughter's birthday party. The sadness in their hearts was only a small fraction compared to the happiness they felt for they're daughter. The day continued merrily.
✘✘✘
The dance hall of the Xavier mansion was bustling with mutant activity. Not the normal blasting power and energy that the house was accustomed to, this excitement was a semi-formal dance.
All members of the current X-men were present as well as quite a few former members. All sorts of dancing took place. Presently, a slow version of the Tango was being played. The music slowed to a stop and those who were not dancing applauded the efforts of the dancers.
Mara had danced with everyone. She danced with Warren III and IV, Luc, Remy, Hank, Kurt, Chris (three times, in fact.), Scott, Piotr, Sean, and many others, some she barely knew. Her last dance was with her father.
That particular dance was very important to Mara. She remembered that her father would lift her in the air when she was very young and dance with her. He said he had done that since she was a baby. More vividly she remembered that later when she could control her power enough, she took him up into the clouds and they danced amongst the heavens. She had done so with her favorite uncle, Kurt Wagner, before as well.
The dance she shared with her father now was of a different sort. She and Logan had danced to a slow Tango song, very close and slow in a sweet way. He had not said one word about how much the slow dance as well as the freak dance she had with Chris had bothered him. She knew it had, the look of dread on his face every time Chris had asked to dance was unmistakable. Logan said nothing, though. He held his tongue and tried to enjoy his daughters' big day.
As the party went on Mara and Chris received gifts from everyone except the professor. He reached for a microphone and tapped it a few times testing it. Mara and Chris moved towards the front to stand with the professor. The guests all settled down and turned their attention towards the front.
"As you may have noticed, Mara and Chris have received gifts from everyone. Everyone save me." Xavier announced with two wrapped packages on his lap. "I would like to announce my gifts to everyone. My esteemed Christopher and my dear Kimara, I have spoken with your parents and the other members of the X-Men. They have all agreed that I give you these."
Xavier picked up the packages and handed the first to Mara and the other to Chris. He motioned for them to begin opening the gifts. A ribbon was tied tightly on each and could not be removed without the aid of a sharp object. Wolverine stepped forward and offered his claws, cutting through the ribbon of each package.
They removed the wrapping paper as the professor said, "If you accept these gifts, which I hope suit your tastes, you will be known as Spitfire and Hurricane of the X-Men."
Just as the professor finished his sentence both packages were opened to reveal two neatly folded uniforms. Each with small "X's" printed in at least one spot. The new X-Men could not see the whole of their uniforms. They would have to take them out or try them on to see every detail.
Mara was so excited she knelt down and hugged the professor. Chris decided that a friendly handshake would suffice. Then Mara looked at her father several feet away. The professor had said "Hurricane". She knew her father had been the inspiration for the codename. For he had always said that her eyes resembled the ocean during a hurricane, the way they sparkled and the color was remarkable, it was one of her nicknames.
She smiled at him and he seemed to understand. She thought that she might have seen him cry, but pushed away the thought. Wolverine never cried. He was always strong and kept this barrier around him that everyone said he had. Mara herself had never noticed it. Perhaps, he was different around her. He was her father after all.
Then Mara turned back to the professor and Chris who stood next to her. She hugged Chris in congratulation and nodded to the professor, signifying her thanks. Chris did the same and they both took a bow.