Greetings from The Lady Mage! Read, enjoy, review!
Legalities: *writing on chalkboard* I do not own Sabretooth. I do not own Sabretooth. I do not own Sabretooth. I do not own . . .
FERITY: (fehr-it-ee) - (noun) - 1. The state of being wild, or untamed. 2. The state of being savage; Ferocity.
Once the two women heard the shower start up, and the sound of the shower door clicking closed, Ororo and Jean shared an openly astonished look. Like the old friends they were, the two women hopped together onto an exam table. Jean filled out the medical charts on the clipboard, writing off the things that were obvious- hair, skin, eye colour, and so on. Ororo sat watching as they spoke.
"My word, Jean." Ororo said, turning her head to the closed bathroom door.
"I know." murmured the telekine. "We don't get this every day."
"That's a good thing." The windrider said with an amused smirk, looking up from the med chart. "Or we'd be overrun."
Jean nodded once, trying to laugh while letting out a yawn. "I am so tired."
Ororo yawned herself, then lightly smacked Jean's shoulder. "Quit that- nasty habit." She feigned irritation when Jean chuckled, then joined her. "I'm sleeping in in the morning after this."
"Me, too. Scott can deal with the students' weekend activities." said Jean.
The fair-haired woman snickered. "He'll appreciate that one, I bet." She pointed to a blank box on the chart. "How old do you think she is, Jean?"
"Gosh, maybe seventeen?" returned Jean.
"Seventeen." The windrider paused, watching Jean tap her pen on the clipboard. "And already with a baby to care for."
"It's not unheard of." commented the redhead with a shrug. "It happens every day- another teenage girl winds up pregnant with nowhere to go. This one just happened to belong to the Brotherhood, too. She acts strange, doesn't she."
"A little, yes. I assumed it was just nerves."
The clipboard was set beside them on the table, filled as far as it could be without further examination of the new girl. Ororo raised her arms up over her head, clasping them behind her head to pop her shoulders. "Who do you think the father is?" she asked absently.
Jean gave her a serious expression. "Sabretooth."
"Sabretooth? Really?"
Nodding, Jean met her friend's eyes. "Oh, yeah. I couldn't read her mind so well- her thoughts were so jumbled- but Sabretooth was like an open book- like he was trying to open up to me."
"Scary."
"It's his- that's why he brought them here: because they are his, and he wants to protect them. He can't do anything for her while he is running from the police, so Magneto told him to bring her here."
The windrider visibly shuddered. "I can't imagine."
"You probably don't want to."
"Nope. Not really."
Behind them, the medbay door slid open, and Charles Xavier rolled into the room. He was still in his green plaid pajama bottoms, with a matching button-up top, and dark blue house slippers. Scott came in behind him, and went to lean against the exam table with Jean and Ororo. Charles rolled his chair up to them, smiling at his oldest students. Without an ounce of sleep in his voice, he spoke: "So, I hear we may have a new student." He looked from Jean to Ororo. "An interesting situation, as Scott has informed me. May I see the letter they brought?"
Jean nodded, pulling the envelope from her back pocket. The three students-turned-teachers watched as the professor turned it over in his hands. He read the scrolling handwriting on the back, spelling out his name. When he broke the wax seal, opening the envelope, he pulled out a single page letter with a polaroid picture folded into it. The picture was of a redheaded girl, fast asleep on a leather couch, her head resting on none other than Sabretooth's shoulder. Her body was cuddled up against his side, and he had one arm thrown over her, holding her in place. The blonde feral's attention was on something out of the shot, and apparently didn't know he was being photographed.
'Intriguing.'
Charles tucked the picture back in the envelope, concentrating on the letter. He unfolded the page, recognizing with a grin, the familiar handwriting. There was no doubt in his mind that this was written by his old friend- he would recognize his neat script anywhere. It took him a moment to read it over, not having read Hebrew in quite a few years.
"What does it say, professor?" Ororo asked.
"It is very interesting." Xavier said in answer, looking back up to them. "Eric Lehnsherr wrote this especially for her- a full two months before today. Zosia, this girl, it says, is a sister in his Brotherhood, and her place in it is high. Eric, himself, wants me to take her in while he is imprisoned, to make sure that she is safe." He put the envelope in his shirt pocket. "She must be very special to him."
"So, what do you think?" asked Scott.
"Well, assuming the girl poses no security or safety risk, I see no reason why I should want to turn her out into the snow." answered the professor.
"She hasn't seemed too aggressive." said Jean, pursing her lips.
"Not really- just a bit . . guarded." Ororo agreed.
"So we're just letting her stay?" asked Scott.
Jean perked up with a little smile. "You mean: we're just letting them stay." she corrected.
"Them? Huh?"
As if on cue, the bathroom door opened, and the girl stepped out. Her hair was even curlier now that it was wet, hanging down to her elbows, dampening the back of her clothes. She was barefoot, wearing a pair of lowrise black track pants, and a pale pink a-shirt. She had the a-shirt shifted on one side, Sari against the skin of her breast. The cub, clean and dry, was diapered and in the white onesie her mother had picked for her.
The feral watched Scott for a few seconds, not sure if she should give him the warmest of greetings. Instinct told her no, so she turned her eyes to the professor, offering a polite smile to him as she crossed the room to take a seat back beside her leather bag. Charles returned her smile genuinely, turning his chair to face her.
The professor held out a hand to her. "Good morning. You must be Zosia." She nodded, reaching out and letting him shake her hand, then carefully examine the claws that tipped her fingers. "Pleasure to meet you."
"Bonjour. Please, call me Zoe. You are the professeur?" she asked.
Charles nodded, giving her hand back. "I am Professor Charles Xavier." He turned his attention to the nursing baby. "And this is . . ?"
"We've named her Sari." the girl said softly, smoothing the baby's hair with her free hand.
"Where the heck did she hide that?" Scott asked. Jean thumped his thigh with the back of her hand, shushing him.
"Sari- that's a lovely name." Charles said, smiling again. "How old is she?"
"One week yesterday." answered the girl.
Pulling the envelope back from his pocket, he took the picture from it, showing it to the girl. She took it from his hands, bringing her right knee up to rest her foot on the chair edge, examining the picture with a small, secretive smile. Charles tucked the envelope away again, leaving the picture with her. "Zosia, is he Sari's father?"
She nodded, looking back up to him. "Yes, Victor is her father."
"Vict- you mean Sabretooth?" Scott sputtered, his voice loud, surprised, echoing in the room.
Sari released her hold, startled, showing her fright with a wail. Zosia put the picture on her bag beside her, and tightened her arms around the baby, rubbing her back until she was soothed enough to resume her nursing. Content and secure against her mother's skin, Sari's little hand curled back on her mother's breast. Her mother turned an irritated, angry glare on the younger man sitting between the telekine and windrider. She found the expression too difficult to maintain while trying to softly purr to keep Sari calm. With a soft sigh, she turned her eyes back to her daughter.
"Scott . . " Xavier gave the man a chastising expression, telling him without words to calm down. When the man nodded, the professor turned back to the girl. "I read the letter that Magneto wrote for you. He has a very high opinion of you." The girl lowered her eyes demurely, her cheeks gaining the barest hint of pink. The professor gestured to Sari. "But he made no mention of this little one."
"We didn't want to reveal her until we had to." Zoe explained. "In case you had decided to attack us before listening- that way, you wouldn't have known to target her. That is likely the reason why Eric said nothing about her- in case perhaps the telekine could read Hebrew."
"I see." Charles nodded.
"Eric Lehnsherr has always been so kind to me." Zoe said with a soft smile. "He treats me like a daughter, I suppose."
"Magneto?" Scott looked disturbed, shaking his head, but said no more.
"Tell me, Zoe, how is it that you came to be like his daughter?" the professor asked. "How did you end up joining the Brotherhood?"
The happy expression left the girl like a shroud had been drawn across her eyes; she turned them down to glare at the floor again. She looked as though she didn't wish to tell the story. Her eyes were still darkened when she looked back up to meet his. Xavier reached out to her, giving her knee a fatherly pat. "It's is all right, Zoe." he said, his tone kind. "You won't be judged."
"I do not fear your judgement." Zoe said quietly with a snort. Her free hand went up to grip the ball-chain necklace around her neck, absently rubbing its charms together.
"Okay then." he returned, amused. "How did you meet Eric Lehnsher? How did you find him?"
"I didn't find him, mon professeur." She almost smiled at him, but it looked more like a grimace as it flashed across her face. "Quite the other way around, actually. I was the one who was found."
"Were you a runaway?" Ororo asked again.
The feral shook her head. "Non." She glanced up at the woman. "I don't know. I just woke up- alone- out in the middle of nowhere, somewhere up in Canada." Her eyes went back to Sari's little face. "I was alone for three or four months- nothing but the clothes on my back, blind instinct, and my tag."
"Tag?"
Jean looked inquisitive. The feral could smell it coming off of her. Zosia nodded, opening her free hand. In her palm, hanging on the chain, were two metal tags, three charms, and a gold ring. She slipped the chain over her head, then held it out to the professor. He took them, turning them over in his hands to examine them. The three teachers had hopped down, looking over his shoulder.
One tag was badly scratched, but the name 'SABRETOOTH' could still clearly be read on one side. The other side was just as marred with 'VICTOR- 458 25 242' nearly unreadable on the back. The other tag was in better condition, with the name 'PANTHERA' etched on one side, and 'ZOSIA- 997 11 010' on the other. The ring on the chain was a simple white gold band with a little diamond set into it. Also hanging from the chain was a little green frog prince charm, about a half inch tall, along with a blue cat's eye marble and a little metal Knight chess piece.
"Logan has a tag like that." Jean said, looking at the girl's number. "Does that mean-"
"It could mean any number of things." Zoe cut her off. "Victor told me I must have been in the Weapon X program like he had been, but probably enjoyed it much less. I was more experiment than he." She met the professeur's eyes. "Victor said that there had been a handful of female ferals involved, but I was the only surviving one he'd ever seen- and the only feline he's come across."
"Sabretooth gave you his tag?" Jean asked, looking back up to the girl.
"He did." Zoe confirmed. She held Sari's little hand in her own, lovingly running her thumb over the tiny fingers. "A long time ago. He wore my own for a while, too, but gave it back when he gave me that ring."
"I've seen one other tag such as these." Xavier said. "He was also in Weapon X."
Zoe glanced up at him, her eyes bottomless pools of black. She looked like a giant cat watching someone run a string across the floor, her eyes almost glowing. "The Wolverine." she half-hissed.
The professor looked mildly surprised. "Yes. You have seen him? Do you know him?"
"Victor stole his tag in Canada. Knows him somehow." said the feral. "I didn't ask him about it. We do not speak of it." Her tone brooked little argument, and though she could sense that they had several more questions for her, she wasn't in the mind to answer them. She put Sari's hand down, thinking. "How long has he been awake?"
The professor handed the tags back to her, watching her slip the chain over her head, pulling the loose hair from it. "Awake?" Xavier murmured, then realized what she meant. "Oh, for fifteen years."
"I see. I've only been awake for three years- almost four." She glanced up at Ororo with a little smile. "So when I told you I didn't know how old I really am, I meant it. I could be twenty, thirty- or one hundred thirty."
"Then what, Zoe?" Charles prompted. "After you woke up in the woods, then what?"
When she looked up again, the darkness was gone from her eyes, the predatory, calculating look missing. "I was alone, until Victor found me." she answered. Her voice was soft, as was her tone. "He had come across my scent by chance while out hunting, and he tracked me down to the tree I had been living in." She cracked a small smile. "He snuck up on me- startled me. He thought that perhaps I was a lost human. When he saw I was a cat, he started to try to talk to me- wanting to know who I was, where I was from." She shook her head, amused. "And I couldn't understand a word he was saying."
"He spoke another language?" asked Scott, one eyebrow raised.
The feral nodded. "He spoke to me in English, and then in German, but I spoke French. Save for a word here and there, there are not many similarities between the three. It was a difficult guessing game."
"Then how did you know what he wanted?"
. . . Not understanding, she cocked her head to the side, then held one hand out flat. She made the other hand look as though she held a pencil, and was writing on her hand. "Ecrire? (Write?)"
He copied the motion, using one claw to carve a V on the branch in front of him. "Draw?"
She nodded, hopping down one branch. She looked up to see if he would follow, then dropped down another few branches. When he moved to climb after her, she dropped to the ground, bending over to pick up a stick from the firewood pile. She used her foot to scoot leaves away from the earth beneath them.
"Ecrire. (Write.)" she said again, crouching down and writing her name in the dirt.
'Z-O-S-I-A' She wrote in neat, stylized letters, with a little star to dot her 'I'.
Victor understood, crouching on the other side of the patch of dirt she'd cleared. He spelled out his name, his letters bold, jagged, and she smiled, leaning forward and dotting his 'I' with a star like her own . . .
"Two days later, he came back with Mystique to find me."
"Why Mystique?" The telekine asked, finishing up the medical chart. She glanced over the top of the clipboard at the girl curled up in the chair, fingering her tags around her neck.
"Because she can speak at least a dozen different languages. He brought her to translate for us." Zosia answered, her voice absent as she finally managed to get Sari to sleep. "She asked me if I had anybody, and if I would like to go home with them. They took me in."
"Just like that?" Scott still looked disturbed, trying not to look at the feral as she fixed her a-shirt back. 'Has she no shame?'
"Just like that, really." confirmed the feral with a non-commital shrug.
Xavier took in the information, quietly listening to a few stray thoughts from the girl's mind. Her head read like Sabretooth's had that evening in New York in front of the train station. While more than half of the thoughts swimming through were in word-like form, they were all fragmented with the basal feralistic emotion thoughts. Where he would get a piece of a thought as she spoke, he would get the emotion she put into it overriding the marquee. It was like they didn't think about their words, but anyone who listened to her would know that couldn't be the case. When the girl offered him another small smile, laying the slumbering cub across her lap, he came out of his thoughts.
"So you have been with Eric for almost four years then." he stated. "What about the others? What is your place in the Brotherhood?"
"At first, mon professeur," She began, her eyes on Sari. "It was only as a curiosity. I was just another sister to be brought to the cause. Eric took special interest in me after I picked up German in a handful of days. When I picked up English as fast, he decided to make me his little pet project. He taught me everything he could. I learn quickly, I suppose." She shrugged again, unconcerned. "Mystique- she basically adopted me as a little sister- even though I am probably decades older than she is. And Warts was just my goofball brother. There are others out there that are loyal to Eric, but this was my family- the ones I lived with."
"What about Sabretooth then?" asked Ororo. "Did he just keep you for himself from the get-go?"
The girl snorted, smirking. "Hardly. We held out for almost a year, but it's quite obvious that didn't last." She rolled her eyes, fluttering her eyelids, "Patience is not exactly a defining trait of mon amant." (my lover.)
"And what about Ellis Island? Where were you there?" Xavier asked.
"At home, with the baby." she answered. "I didn't know exactly what was going on. Since I was pregnant, he left me to my own devices while they planned. For all intents and purposes, I was out of the loop. They felt it was better that way if things went- well, I suppose the way they went." 'Thanks for that, by the way.'
"And your purpose for being here?"
"We have nowhere else to go, Sari and I. There is no other place for us. We could not go with Victor to run from the humans. If they were to catch me- if they got to Sari- who knows what they would do to her?" She gently shook her head. "I am not out for harm- I do not wish to make trouble. I only want a safe place to wait until someone comes for me." She glanced down at her daughter. "I love Victor- the man, and the beast. I chose him, and doing so, chose this part of our lifestyle . . . but that was before Sari was born. Victor and I, we won't endanger our cub- I won't."
Charles watched the girl silently for a few moments, trying to read her for any signs of deceit. He only saw a little candle of hope, burning small, but bright. She was genuine, and she was scared to death that he would throw them out. Surely if it were some sort of attempted trick, she'd not fear her release, so finally, he smiled at her, patting her knee again.
"Alright, Zosia." he said, his tone paternal. "I think we can set aside a place for you. You and Sari will be safe here."
To Be Continued . . .
Well? What do you think? Good? Bad? Next chappie gets interesting!
The Lady Mage