Author's note:

Heads up for Star Fox veterans; there's a bit of recap in this chapter and the next. I've done my best to keep it to a minimum.

Chapter 3: Heritage

Kursed tossed and turned throughout the night. Demons crawled along every corner inside her mind. They hissed and jeered until their insults became almost loud enough to make her scream. Her teeth, eyes, and hands all hurt as she clenched them relentlessly. The waking nightmares tied a noose around her throat, constricting her airways. 'Just get it over with,' she pleaded them.

"Mum…?"

Kursed jolted. Her heart hammered inside her ribs. She rolled around to find Marcus standing in the dark next to her. "Marcus…? What are you doing up? It's late!"

"I couldn't sleep…"

The misery in his voice hurt Kursed. She sat up on the couch. "What's the matter?"

For too long, Marcus didn't answer. Then Kursed heard a sharp sob tear from him. "Are you and Dad getting a divorce?"

"What?!" Kursed exclaimed. She reached out to Marcus and cupped his cheek. Hot tears wetted her palm. "No! No, of course not, sweetie! Why would you ever think that?"

"I heard you guys fighting," Marcus choked. "You're mad that I read my friends' minds, right? That's why you were crying, wasn't it?" Through her empathy, Kursed felt his distress radiating from him like a sickly bonfire.

"No! No-no-no! No, Marcus! We weren't fighting! I promise!" Kursed pulled him against her chest. Marcus locked his arms around her tightly. His cries shook his entire body. Kursed's shoulder quickly soaked through. "I promise you, sweetheart. Your father and I were not fighting. What's happening between us is not your fault. And we are not getting a divorce!" She prayed to the spirits and her ancestors that her words would not prove empty to her sun and stars.

"Then why were you both crying?" Marcus sniffed.

Kursed stroked the back of his head. "It's… complicated." She did not want to tell this story to him, but she sensed that it was now necessary. Kursed pulled away and patted the couch cushions. "Come here."

Marcus wriggled over beside her. Kursed pulled the blankets over them as they laid across the couch. She wrapped her arms around him. "Would you like to hear how your father and I first met?"

"I know that already," Marcus murmured. "You were both bounty hunters and worked together until you got married."

"That's part of the story," Kursed smiled. "But it's not how it really starts. There was so much more that came before then."

She caressed his ear lovingly. Kursed could already feel Marcus relax. "A long time ago, I had a different name to what I go by now. My parents named me Krystal, and I spent many years in a faraway solar system called Lylat."

"Why did you change your name?" Marcus interrupted.

"We'll… get to that in a moment," Kursed said with the latest of many more pangs in her heart. "I lost my family in a terrible tragedy, along with everything else that I knew. I travelled the stars searching for answers, and eventually came upon a planet of dinosaurs called Sauria."

The early memories were fond and came to Kursed in vivid colours and sounds. She told Marcus about her initial attempt to save Sauria from destruction. However, she became imprisoned before she could succeed. Marcus's breath caught in wonder as Kursed recounted how she was then rescued by the famous hero, Fox McCloud, shortly before he chased after the villain who orchestrated the catastrophe.

After thanking Fox onboard his flagship, he offered her a place to stay while she planned her next move. That ended up becoming her joining his team, Star Fox, as a mercenary. She and Fox spent several years working together to keep the Lylat System safe, fighting rebels; pirates; and the seemingly unstoppable Aparoid threat. Despite the frequent dangers, her time with Star Fox was among the happiest throughout Kursed's life.

"Over time, our friends left the team to pursue their own goals," she continued. "It soon became just Fox and me, and eventually we became lovers." The memories swiftly turned sour. "But one day… Fox told me to quit Star Fox as well. I didn't want to, but he refused to let me stay. In the end, I left him."

She hated herself as Marcus's joy collapsed in an instant. Yet, Kursed pressed on. "Being pushed away made me very angry with your father. I wanted to hurt him like he had hurt me. So, I joined up with one of your father's old enemies, Wolf O'Donnell of Star Wolf."

Kursed decided that Marcus did not need to know about her brief romantic relationship at the time with Wolf's comrade, Panther Caroso. If she were being honest, Panther had loved her far more than she ever did in return. She merely wanted to get under Fox's skin just that little bit more.

"When a new enemy called the Anglars suddenly attacked planets across the Lylat System, your father asked me to help fight them. But… when he trusted me most during the war… I did something unforgiveable to him."

Kursed could not bear to tell Marcus more than that. Perhaps there was no point in doing so. She stopped to dry her face and regain some control over the tremors building in her throat. "When people learned about what I did, they became cruel towards me. I made a rash decision and should never have hurt Fox the way that I had. I was so ashamed that I couldn't live with myself anymore. So, I ran away to another galaxy, where nobody knew who I was, and changed my name. I became Kursed, the bounty hunter. And my mistakes have haunted me ever since."

Marcus was painfully silent afterwards. Kursed wanted to pry deeper into his thoughts, though years of hiding her powers from Fox helped her resist the temptation. Spirits, he must be so disappointed in her…

"But you and Dad made up, right?" Marcus finally said.

"Not exactly," Kursed sighed. "I never expected to see Fox again. By then, I was like a different person. I became cold and bitter, and I did whatever I had to do to take down the galaxy's worst scum for a living. But when I saw Fox again, I realised that I missed him. I wanted to be with him like we used to, but I was too ashamed to tell him who I really was. And when he asked me out, I still couldn't tell him."

She remembered their first kiss following her life as Kursed. For her, it was a bittersweet cocktail of catharsis, joy, sorrow, guilt, hope, and anguish. "I spent years believing that Fox thought I was someone else. I always wanted to tell him the truth, but I was too much of a coward." Kursed sniffed. "But Fox knew who I was the whole time. He just never said so. The two of us simply chose to live with our lies. So, really, we never resolved anything at all."

Kursed stroked Marcus's hair. The soft curl on his head flowed between her finger and thumb. "When Fox and I found out you have the same powers as I do, we couldn't keep our secrets hidden any longer. What you heard tonight was the talk that we should have had from the very start; and waiting for so long only made it worse for us."

Marcus buried his face into her chest. "I'm sorry…" he whimpered. "I wish that I never got these stupid powers…"

"No! That's not it at all, Marcus," Kursed said quickly. She lifted his chin to face her. "You should never be ashamed of your gifts. They're a blessing and I am immensely proud that you have them. I am so sorry that I've ever done anything to make you feel otherwise."

It took more coaxing to ease Marcus's worries. Kursed realised that she only had herself to blame. She had been so concerned about hiding her own gifts from her family that she had completely ignored her son's potential for them. She should have prepared for this day. Now her negligence had harmed Marcus. 'What kind of mother am I?'

"The abilities that you have are very special," she told him. "You and I are descendants from a planet named Cerinia, and every fox who lived there had gifts just like we have. We can listen to the thoughts of others and share ours with them. We can use magic to create fire and ice and rise through the air with our staffs. Some Cerinians could even move objects with their minds and protect people with shields of light."

"And Dad? He said he can't read minds. But can he do that other stuff?"

"Not by himself." Kursed smiled. "Your father is special in his own way. But he is not Cerinian."

"Can we go to Cerinia?"

"I wish that we could, Marcus." Kursed sighed as the old scars bled. "When I was a young woman, one of the bad men whom I mentioned earlier destroyed my planet. Everything on Cerinia was lost forever. Now you and I are all that's left of our people."

Marcus's ears flattened. Kursed perked them up again with a kiss. "Would you like to see what our home world was like?"

"How?"

"Close your eyes." Touching her forehead to his, Kursed extended her consciousness and tethered it to Marcus's mind. Memories of lush forests and running streams flowed between them. Jagged mountains touched pure, white clouds. Humble villages and aging temples masked technological advancement comparable to many young, space-faring cultures. Marcus gasped at the sights, sounds, and smells that he had never sensed before with his own body.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Kursed grinned.

"So cool."

"I'm glad you like it. I wish that Fox and I could have raised you there." Kursed ended their connection. They returned to the darkened living room.

"Do you and Dad still love each other?" Marcus then asked.

She petted his forehead. "Of course, we do. I… I'm just too ashamed with myself to tell him that right now, though."

"Will you guys make up soon?"

"I hope so, sweetheart. I really do hope so. But right now, I don't know if I can keep being Kursed anymore. I need some time to work out if I'm able to be Krystal again. She and I have been very different people for far too long; and I don't know if I'm ready to forgive myself just yet."

"Can I help?"

"Having you here with me is more help than I could ever ask for." Kursed kissed him once more. "But we've talked enough. It's very late and it's time to sleep. Okay? We'll talk more about this another time."

Marcus tightened his arms around her. "Can I stay here with you tonight?"

Kursed's chest swelled enough to nearly burst. "Of course you can, sweetheart."

As her son closed his eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep. Kursed watched over him as pain and love waged war within her. She wanted to be free from the demons of her past. She wanted to hold on to the happy memories and the kind-hearted man whom she first fell in love with. Alas, Kursed could not have one without the other. And more than anything else, she wanted to never let go of the future that she held in her arms this night.

If only she could turn back the clock and redo her life all over again…

End note:

It hurt writing the first part of this chapter. I cried a little.