She doesn't think I can see her. I'm standing in the shadows, looking down at her. She leaps, teleports and beheads the moving dummy without making a sound. She once told me that the War hadn't really been a war to her. It had just been an increased workload. Her entire life is a battle, one where there is no reprieve, no calm. She can't even relax when we're off-duty. She is always fighting, always a warrior.
She spoke a few times to Hope Summers, the mutant messiah child. The other X-Men try to keep her away from the girl. I didn't know why until Logan explained. Etana used the girl as bait to draw in Bastion, the mutant killing machine, and turned it into a heap of scrap metal. According to Tora she saved the lives of Cable and Nightcrawler, as well as two non-combatant mutants. But Cable tries to keep Etana away. The odd thing is, the girl seems to want to talk, but gets pulled away every time she tries to talk to Etana.
And Etana doesn't want to talk to her. It's odd. I can't fit in with her mutant life. Can't understand what they suffer. And I know Tora keeps hurrying over. The woman is exhausted. Apparently one of her 'others' is changing rapidly, too rapidly for both Tora and Tana's liking. And also, one day Tora turned up and yelled for a long time, telling Etana that lies weren't the way to go. Etana dragged her off and they had a very long talk, resulting in Tora leaving and telling Etana to tell me. She hasn't, and I'm not going to push. Lesson one of being married to her. Never ask a question you may regret a totally truthful answer to. Yes. I learnt that very, very early on. Really, you don't want to ask, "What is that for?" and get the reply "Blowing up things in a tailored radius. Don't touch. It's on a hair-trigger."
Stevie looks up at me. His eyes are dark brown, very good at looking plaintively up at you. Etana just glares at him and tells him that if he pukes on her, she will refuse to send him to a first rate college. She seems to think it's funny. Oh boy… Our kid is going to grow up really messed up.
