Again, I own nothing X-Men. Eric Wasser is mine, though.
Enjoy, but review if you have the time. Thanks,
--P.
Sarah sits outside the church. She is conflicted.
She came with Callisto because they are friends. She came because this meeting concerns their cause. She came because she is a mutant. She came because she has to keep up appearances. In truth, she doesn't want to be anywhere near this church. She doesn't want to be plotting war.
Still, when that old man took the podium, when he gave his speech about genocide, about factions, about fighting, Sarah felt the heat rising in her heart. When he spoke, she felt his passion--mutant passion--to tear the humans apart. The audacity! To think that they presumed mutants needed a cure. "Blasphemy, filth, and lies!" Sarah had shouted.
She is conflicted, none the less.
Callisto is inside with the old man, She'd said he was strong. She'd know. Sarah believes that Callisto knows everything. She prays Callisto doesn't know what she' thinking.
Sarah sits on the church steps. A few other mutants open the massive wooden doors and walk out. Obviously warmongering didn't sit well with them. They're the minority, it seems. Through the doors Sarah can hear the chanting, the shouts, the anti-human sentiment. The fleeing mutants pull up their hoods, button their coats, and pay Sarah no mind. They're gone in minutes; forgotten.
The chanting inside continues.
She must admit, it all sounds so nice. She wishes she could feel that way. She wishes that her hearts were filled with such zeal… but the moment that the news of a cure reached her ears, a seed of doubt was planted inside her, and it grows now, unchecked.
She can't tell Callisto. She wants to, but she knows that she can't tell her. Callisto wouldn't understand. She wouldn't be mean, she wouldn't yell or curse, but she would not understand. Philippa, on the other hand, would call Sarah weak and push her down. She'd start a fight. She'd yell about 'us and them.'
You're one of us, why do you want to be like them?
Sarah shakes her head. Callisto and Philippa are pretty. They cannot understand what it's like. Had they not marked themselves with garish tattoos and strange body jewelry, were they not to use their gifts in public, no one would ever know they were different.
Sarah is not afforded that luxury.
It's hot under the hood of her heavy cloak, so Sarah removes it. The fabric catches on one of the heavy bone spikes jutting from her forehead. The hood tears. She sighs and pokes at the exposed bone with a fingertip.
Callisto is gifted with infinite knowledge about the mutants around her and blinding speed; Philippa with the power to move mountains and shake the foundations of the earth. Sarah's metabolism moves at a much higher rate. This makes her fast, reflexive, incredibly durable, and stronger than most mutants. It also makes her bones grow at alarming rates and in seemingly impossible places.
Some of the bones she can grow at will, wrenching them from her elbows and wrists to use as weapons. Some bones grow on their own, painfully pushing themselves out of her head, back, and even her mouth. Without her cloak, people would quickly notice the almost dinosaurian spines and armor, and when people notice that, it's never a good thing.
Callisto calls her Marrow, and Sarah thinks that's ok. However, her grandmother always told her that Sarah was prettiest name a girl could have and that she was a pretty, pretty, girl. Sarah likes the name--her name--because of that one memory.
It was the old woman's good fortune to die before I changed, Sarah thinks.
And this is why Sarah--Marrow--is conflicted.
Marrow is angry at the humans, angry at their supposed superiority, angry at their laws, angry at the fact that they can walk around without coats or cloaks, without fear or hatred. She is jealous. She is vengeful. Marrow remembers being ten years old and being abandoned. Marrow remembers being unloved, unwanted, forgotten, and abused. Marrow remembers growing up a mutant. Marrow wants blood. She wants buckets of blood. Marrow wants to walk beside the gray old man, right up the steps of the human capitol, and she wants to tear it down.
Sarah is sad. Sarah is lonely. Sarah remembers what it was like to wear a yellow sundress in the backyard on a spring day. She remembers laughter. She remembers love. Sarah mourns the death of her innocence. Sarah wants children. Sarah wants a husband. Sarah wants a house, a yard, and a little girl who will never, never, be called ugly. She wants nothing to do with blood, with tears, with bones that once stuck of out of her body being driven into the bodies of other people.
"Are you a mutant?"
She had been so absorbed in her own dilemma, Sarah had missed the boy walking up to her. Now he was inches away and staring directly at her; at her face. White hot anger. She's not wearing her hood and he's staring at her, at her face. He's probably a filthy human and he's staring! HE HAS NO RIGHT TO STARE!
Marrow snarls, rises from her seat on the stairs, and wrenches the boy to the ground before he can even think to react. There's a growl and a snap, and she's pressed a bone spike to his throat. The boy looks scared; Marrow looks villainous.
"Give me one good reason not to kill you, you filthy human. Just one reason so I can laugh at it while you die…"
The boy is shaking. "I'm… I'm…" He can't get it out, his voice cracks. His blue eyes are wide and horrorstruck.
"Spit it out!" Marrow roars.
A squeak. "I'm not human!"
The fog clears and Marrow looks around. He's dropped his duffle bag a few feet away, his clothes a torn, he looks hungry… he's a kid, barely over sixteen she'd guess.
Marrow climbs hastily off of the boy and hurls her bone dagger away into the bushes. The boy scrambles a few feet away, distancing himself from the violent woman as she retakes her seat on the church steps, pulling the hood back over her plated brow.
"Sorry." Sarah grumbles from under the fabric. "I… I just don't like people to stare. The meeting's inside, but it's practically over."
The boy dusts himself off, readjusting the long blue scarf around his neck. "It's ok." He says, still eying Sarah warily. "I didn't really come for the meeting."
"Whatever." Sarah breathes. "Just go on."
"I'm sorry I stared at you." The boy offers.
"Whatever."
"I've just… well… I've never met another mutant. I've never seen one. I was curious."
Sarah makes no sound. She's almost gargoyle-like in her silent unmoving position on the church steps, head down, hood obscuring her expression.
The boy continues. "What's your name."
"Look… I'm sorry I pushed you down, but until you came along I was trying to think. So, if you don't mind, get lost. Go inside. There's lots of mutants there. Fun bunch. Go."
Leaving his bag where it fell, the boy climbs the stairs and sits beside the cloaked woman, though still far enough away to allow a retreat if necessary. "What's bothering you?"
"Nothing. Beat it!"
"You know, if something is bothering you, talking about it can help."
Sarah scoffs. "How do you figure?"
"We can come to terms with things that are beyond our control, things we can't change."
"Ugh, how trite." She spits. "Besides, I can change it. It's not beyond my control."
The boy scoots closer. "What?"
"Every mutant has two choices… we can go and get 'cured,' be pretty and normal. That, or we can fight, bust some skulls, and take over… but still be ugly." She shakes her head. "I have the power to walk to one of those clinics, get that shot, and be pretty again. I also have the power to walk down to that clinic, tear them up, and show them what I think of their stupid human medicine. I can do both; It's a bitch… this damned indecision."
"You think you're ugly?"
"I am."
The boy shakes head. "No. You're not ugly."
"Oh spare me." Sarah rips her hood off again. "As if you didn't stare enough earlier, look. Look at this face kid. And it's not always this symmetrical. This is a good day. It shifts. It changes. New bones grow and old ones fall off. I'm a goddamned rhino. No one wants to wake up next to this. No one wants to pass this on the street for that matter. Hell, even the other mutants barely want to look at me."
The boy reaches out and touches the woman's shoulder. She flinches before fixing him with an angry look. "What?"
The boy smiles, though it's clear he's still quite scared of the belligerent Sarah. "You're not ugly. At least, I don't think you're ugly. You're the first mutant I've ever met… other than myself. That has to mean something."
"It means your full of shit."
The boy pulls his hand away.
Sarah sighs. "Or, maybe you're just naïve. What's your name, kid?"
"Eric, Eric Wasser. You?"
She pauses for a moment, unsure of what to tell this boy to call her. He's seen Marrow. He met Marrow first. However, he's been reaching out to Sarah now without ever having met her before. She gives him the benefit of the doubt.
"Sarah."
"It's nice to meet you, Sarah."
Standing. "I find that hard to believe." She stretches, popping her back with an almost-too-loud pop. "I'm going back inside. I've bullshitted enough, I think."
"What did you decided?"
"I didn't. I'm just gonna' ride it out, you know?"
Eric nods.
"You got a place, kid?"
Eric's face darkens. "No."
"Well come inside. No sense in dragging that bag around anymore tonight. We'll talk to Callisto and she can probably set you up with a place to stay."
"Callisto?"
Sarah helps Eric to his feet. "My friend." Eric gets his bag.
They'll walk into the church together. Philippa will catch them near the door and gripe about Sarah not listening to the speech. She'll say something about the old man, Magneto, and how he's the general they've been waiting for. She says they'll go to war. Sarah will look uncertainly at the boy beside her and ask for Callisto. She'll find her in a corner talking with the gray haired Magneto. Eric will not stray far from the hem of Sarah's cloak.
Sarah will not interrupt She'll wait patiently nearby as Callisto finishes talking with the man, and come when only her friend motions her over. She'll take off her cloak at Magneto's urging. She'll reveal the curved bone spires extending from her vertebrae, the dagger-like protrusions on her knees and ankles. She'll feel naked.
"You'll never have to hide your beauty again, my dear." Magneto will tell Sarah.
And Marrow will never put her cloak back on.