Memories
Dance of Worlds
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If you want to use Tora, or any of my other characters, PM me.
Etana was sitting on a rock at the top of the mountain, staring glumly into the little black and white checked paper bag. Tora frowned.
"Is that…sweets?"
Etana nodded and pulled out a pale semi-translucent brown cuboid and popped it in her mouth.
"They make it in this one little shop in a tiny town in the Scottish Lowlands. I'm running out. I'll need to go and get some more soon."
"What is it?"
"Toffee. Want some."
Tora found herself staring into the face of a ram in a bright red circle, the name of the shop printed on the side. She shook her head as the aroma of pure sugar danced into her nose.
"It used to be this lovely old-fashioned place with big glass jars of sweets and a wonderful pick and mix selection. Then they got rid of the old buckets and shovels and brought in these little pink bags instead. They still do the toffee though, for which I am eternally grateful."
Tora resisted the urge to burst out laughing. Etana shrugged.
"Odd how you get attached to the little things isn't it? I'm still not sure how I'll hold up tomorrow. There are so many people I want to be there. Father, Mother, Uncle, David, Michael, Leonardo, Joan, Albert, Mica… All dead. And Leo owes me a small fortune. He bet I'd never get married. I was tempted to take up Niccolò's offer, just to annoy Leo."
"Niccolò?"
"Machiavelli. A genius, a complete and utter genius. And rather embarrassingly, asked me to marry him, although I do think he just wanted to find out what I was."
"How many proposals have you had Etana? Just out of interest."
"Er… The warlord, one. Apocalypse, two, Michael, three, er…Alexander, four, the creepy alien, five, Nero, six, Niccolò, seven, Casanova, didn't count, That man whose name I've forgotten but I know he was famous for something, eight. Oh, Henry VII, nine. Steve, ten."
"Etana…"
"I never really seriously considered any of them except Michael. We were the last two with Cheyarafim blood. He succeeded Father as the Prince. And then I realised he just wanted me to increase the power of the Cheyarafim. Steve is the only one I ever loved properly."
"Then why so nervous?"
"Because I'm not naturally a wife or any of that stuff. I'm a fighter, have been since the day I was born."
"So have I Etana."
"But… Tora, Logan likes you as a fighter. I know Steve tries to hide it but I see the fear in his eyes. He doesn't like me fighting. And he's the sort of guy who wants a family. I wouldn't want any child saddled with me as a mother. My genes are pretty messed up as it is."
Tora couldn't help herself. Her hand connected with Etana's cheek.
"Stop it!"
Etana's hand was touching her face where Tora had slapped her. She blinked almost as if she couldn't quite believe what had happened.
"Tora?"
"Pull yourself together. Steve loves you. He was this far from a breakdown when we told him you were in a coma."
Etana made an odd face.
"And no running away. You'd break his heart."
"I… Tora, I can't do this."
Tora slapped Etana again.
"Don't. Say. That. You are Justice's Shadow. You faced down Apocalypse, you thumbed your nose at Roosevelt. I frankly feel one little ceremony shouldn't scare you so much."
"But…"
"STOP IT THIS INSTANT ETANA!"
The look of comically shock was worthy of a photograph. Then Etana burst out laughing.
"I knew I could count on you Tora."
xXx
Steve froze as they rounded the corner. At first, Tora couldn't work out what the two black triangles and single line, both splattered with red, were. And then she saw Etana, hanging from the ceiling, blood pouring down her back. Her hair had been shaved off. As Tora got nearer, she could see the gouges in her back where someone had hacked through sinew and bone to tear out her wings and tail. Barely preventing herself from retching, Tora cut through the chains and Etana fell down, crumpling under her own weight. Steve caught her and knelt, allowing her to lie back, ignoring the blood staining his chest. Her half-closed silver eyes, pain drunk, tried to focus on him.
"I swear this wasn't an attempt to get out of our marriage Discus-Boy."
Steve looked as if he wanted to cry.
"Shhh. You need to rest. We'll get you fixed up. Don't worry."
"Too late… Dying… Healing comes from wings see? 'Fore I go, Steve… Sorry…'bout everything. Should have said earlier."
"Conserve your strength. 'Tana, pull through. You have to. I need you."
"Sorry…so sorry. Love you..."
And her head flopped back, blood trickling out of her mouth and nose. The blood pooled around Steve's knees as he lay there holding her close, ignoring the fact she was dead. Whispering to her.
"Come on 'Tana. Beast's coming. Stay with me 'Tana. Stay with me. Please…"
And Tora, pushing her own grief aside, knelt down and pulled Steve in for a hug, Etana encased between them as Steve muttered and mumbled to a dead woman, hoping she would answer. Tora snarled slightly.
"I will kill Cameron Hodge if it's the last thing I do."
xXx
She listened with bemusement as Reed, Tony and Hank argued about the coding.
"I can't break it! Tony, you can't. AIM has finally created an unbeatable code!"
"Can I see it?"
Reed shrugged. Hank insisted she came to this meeting. She normally just sat there quietly.
"If it would give you any satisfaction. Here."
Her eyes scanned the first line of numbers. A single golden-furred hand traced the numbers, lips moving as she ran through all the codes in her head.
77,79,68,79,75,32,116,111,32,97,108,108,32,65,73,77,32,97,103,101,110,116,115,46
She burst out laughing. The men all frowned.
"Tora?"
"MODOK to all AIM agents. That's the first twenty-four numbers."
She grinned at their open mouths.
"You're thinking too hard. It's ASCII. You know, American Standard Code for Information Interchange? MODOK knew you'd intercept this. It was a test to see if you were able to think at such a low level. I mean, you can pretty much all invent a new language in under an hour so he chose the simplest code thinking correctly that you'd be looking for something complicated."
Silence. And then Hank hugged her and burst out laughing at the same time. And Tony was barking orders to his computer and Reed was blinking as he tried to realise that he'd just been outthought by a self-confessed not-genius. As she so eloquently put it, 'it's not my fault I have the brainpower of an infinite number of people at my fingertips. It's just genetics.' Hank was laughing again, pulling her tighter into the hug and she hugged him back because his joy was infectious.
xXx
She slammed into Wolverine and danced away before he got a chance to swipe at her. She couldn't resist teasing him, taunting him, just to see him snarl.
"Hello Wild-Boy. Miss me? How's Mariko?"
He snarled and she grinned.
"Oh. Touchy subject? I admit, I was going to hurt her a lot more but you arrived too early."
He snarled again and slammed into her. Instantly, Magneto was there to help her.
"Tigress, stop this taunting! We have a job to do."
Sulking, she withdrew, blowing a kiss to Wolverine.
"Next time sweetheart!"
xXx
She turned in the dark, trying desperately to find a way out. She screamed, afraid, unable to see, unable to hear.
"JE NE SUIS PAS UN MUTANT!"
The reply came back in English.
"Oh you are little lady. And we're going to cleanse your kind from this world."
"Really?"
The low voice was dangerous, deadly. Marie shouted again, fumbling with a language she dropped early on in her school career.
"WHO…THERE?"
Suddenly hands were pulling her out of the pit, carefully checking her for injuries and quiet voices surrounded her.
"Cajun speaks French."
"Mais… Remy don't know if she'll understand da Bayou…"
"Nouvelle-Orléans? Oui, je compris."
"Je m'appelle Remy. Je suis un ami. Nous sommes tout amis."
"Qui êtes-vous?"
"Nous sommes le X-Men petite."
"Aidez-moi. S'il vous plait…"
And they carried her out into the light, which hurt her eyes. And the smells were too intense and the noises too loud and she'd covered her ears and closed her eyes and tried to bury her head in the chest of the man who was carrying her but that was even worse as he smelt of cloves and cinnamon and cigarettes and it was so intense. She couldn't cope, everything was so much brighter, louder, stronger. And a small man had come over to her and offered her a plug for her ears.
"Hurts?"
She understood enough English to get that.
"Yes… Everything…bright, strong, smell."
He nodded.
"I understand."
How could he? How could he understand the intensity of her senses now? How could he feel every fold in the coat of the man carrying her through all the clothes she was wearing?
Phoenix shifted from her kneeling position slightly.
"I don't understand how you can stay like that. With the straight back and your legs tucked under you like that."
The woman turned and frowned.
"What? Oh. This? I find it requires little concentration and is a good way to sit when you want to be able to reach the Eye."
Death rolled her eyes.
"Even I get uncomfortable sitting like that."