Other Times, Other Destinies

An Age of Apocalypse fanfic by Brian Doyle

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No permission has been sought, no offence has been intended. As I'm not making any money out of this, please don't sue.
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Half an hour ago I saw how my son will die, and I can see no way to change it. This gives one a strange perspective on life, but to understand my problem you must understand my nature, and my life.

There is a long tradition in literature and mythology of the "blind seer"; The person who can see the future, but not the present. The irony was not lost on me, but I did spend the first fifteen years of my life totally blind, without any compensating abilities, so the irony got old rather quickly.

My parents died in a fire when I was 12 years old. Somehow I managed to escape that fate, (I suspect a partial activation of my power but I have never been certain, and it is not a night I care to recall). My life was quite isolated, restricted to the world I felt safe in; My home, a few local shops and parks, and little else. When I turned 15 I couldn't understand what was happening to me when "things" started appearing in my head. 

I know now it was my mutant power activating, but it was most disconcerting to be aware of a perception that seemed like what everyone described as sight, though of course I had no grounds for comparison. I knew for sure that my eyes were not involved as, technically speaking, I don't have eyes, the optic nerve never developed properly.

Words like "colour" suddenly had true meaning for me. The "vision" inside my head was blurred though, and whilst it took me a long while to understand the concept of sight-based depth perception, it actually took me a lot less time to realise that I could not only sense depth and distance, but time as well.

The changes that resulted were profound. Always a little hesitant moving around before, as all but a few blind people are no matter how calm their facade, I now strode through the world with confidence, knowing exactly where to put my feet so that I would never stumble. That simple fact alone gave me more confidence than you can imagine. I developed the grace and poise of a dancer, and I did dance, on my own terms, for the first time. 

I never needed to study Braille again, the sheer... "certainty" of the written word allowed me to see books quite easily, though again, the idea that a mere variation of black and white tones might convey words and meaning took more getting used to.

I had loved sculpture in the past, but now I came to appreciate painting with a vengeance. I had always had a penchant for medieval art, the chivalry, the legendary quality of it all. I had always loved the story of Arthur and Guinevere, Merlin and Morgan, Cair Paravel and Fair Avalon and now I could see it represented in life.

It must have seemed strange to many to see a woman so obviously blind (The scars around my eyes made concealment almost impossible, even behind the largest pair of dark glasses) wandering through an art gallery looking at the pictures. I heard many murmurs and whispers, but few had the courage to say anything, and those who did I saw coming towards me well ahead of time, and was able to avoid.

My parents had left me well provided for, though I was greatly helped by the fact that I did not need nursing care or readers, and I might have drifted through life quite contentedly, had I not met Raven. 

I had been living in Paris when I first saw her. I was in the Musee Picasso, trying to come to terms with the concept of surrealism (In my innocence I could see no real reason for picturing the world any way other than it was, it's beautiful enough as it is), when I "saw" a woman whose features seemed blurred and uncertain depending on which future I looked at. My curiosity piqued, I simply had to find out more about her... or him, it was hard to say at that point. 

She must have noticed me watching her (And if she found that strange in a woman who was so obviously blind, she didn't show it.) She tried to slip away in a variety of guises, but I could still see her. She was always the blurred face in a range of crystal clear images. Thus, before we had ever exchanged a word we had both realised that the other was also "gifted" (The word "mutant" was new to me as a term for what I was, and besides "gifted" has always seemed so much more positive. I may _be_ a mutant, but I possess a gift.)

In Raven Darkholme I a found a focus for my life and my vision. I could never work out who was the older of us, I was not particularly young, but some things she said suggested she was older than I could possibly understand. That could have been a result of her life however, even the little of which I learned about had been a lot harder than mine.

Raven was wild and daring, in ways I couldn't imagine (She had come to the museum to see some of the paintings that Picasso had done of her, his surrealism and his references to his "Blue period" were more literal than most people imagine). Her life invigorated mine, and I hope I was something of a moderating influence on her as well, even then she was prone to self-destructive urges. In me I like to think she found the ultimate example of someone to whom outwards appearances truly meant nothing. In time we found love with each other.

There were other love's in her life though, her young son Kurt for one, who I found out about by chance, but who I have only actually met within the last day. I learned not to intrude on certain part's of Raven's life, or ask questions when she would disappear for days at a time.  Know she was seeing her son, being the best mother she could be, but it was hard for her to be involved, and me, to be left out.

I often wonder what would have happened with our lives if subsequent events had not taken place. Would Raven have found an outlet for her anger against the persecution of mutants we both felt building up amongst the normal humans? Would she and I have continued as we were, or would we have become something more, or even something less?

I shall never know, because an abomination swept across the world, tainting entire continents with his evil.

I had seen the result of Hitler's grotesque efforts at eugenics, but compared to this, Hitler was a child playing with an ant farm. Raven and I both lost dear friends there, so I mean no disrespect to those lost in the Holocaust, but Apocalypse cast a far wider, darker shadow than the Nazi's ever did. Never has a being been more accurately named.

Raven and I watched on in horror, both uncertain what to do, the sheer scale of it all leaving us reeling. However, on the day my powers saw down all the depths of time available to me and saw only devastation and horror on all sides, I made my choice. I decided to shun my power totally and withdraw from the world around me. I decided I would sooner be blind for life than see the horrors that were still to come. I should have been stronger perhaps, I know that Raven never forgave me for that choice, but she was always stronger than I.

That was the start of the rift between us. Raven set out to survive as best she could in this bleak new world, she and her son, and left me behind. She said that she would have no more dealings with someone who chose to close their eyes to the world around them without trying to make a difference.

I sought peace, but my time with Raven had left me unused to absolute solitude and I realised that there must be other people like myself, human and mutant alike. Those who sought a different life to what the reign of Apocalypse had brought. I was like an old time preacher preaching of a different way of life, a life of peace. 

Though I was frequently rejected violently by those I spoke to, they were too busy scrabbling for survival to entertain dreams of peace. I began to gather converts too, most notably Cain, a giant of a man who was literally as solid as a mountain, but who was amongst the most gentle souls I have ever met. I have found it difficult to imagine that there was much truth in his claims to a violent past, difficult, but not impossible. 

As I gathered support, I realised we needed somewhere unique to found our enclave, somewhere that the tyrant could never find us. The world is quite small and his reach vast, so we needed somewhere special. No country could accept us without incurring the wrath of the Destroyer, and we might well find ourselves sold out by politicians or mob rule. We needed secrecy above all else.

I even went as far as to approach Magneto himself for assistance, but he could not help, being too busy organising his own resistance movement, the X-Men. He actually invited me to join his team in an advisory capacity, and though I respected his aims, and he respected mine, we both knew our paths were too different. It was not to be my destiny to be a costumed adventurer. We parted on good terms, and I often hear about him from newcomers. He's married now, and I hear his wife is a lovely young woman. She must be quite a remarkable person to have earned a space in his heart.

My followers and I searched for a place of our own, but could only find annoyingly vague references to obscure and strange locales that might suit our needs; A lost city in the Himalayas where an advanced people dwelt in self-imposed seclusion; a city in Brazil that seemed like Ancient Rome and was protected by a powerful sorceress; a strange "Savage Land" in the Antarctic where the climate was as balmy as the tropics. They all sounded equally improbable, but improbable was rapidly becoming the norm around the world. 

It was Cain who believed the Antarctic Savage Land was real. He claimed had spent many years as a mercenary and recalled that a... colleague (With the frankly unlikely surname of "Plunder") claimed that it was quite real. He was so convinced that perhaps we all started to believe it, our only problem remained how to find it.

One of my first followers was an acquaintance of Cain's named Amelia. A mutant, her ability to transform herself and others into an insubstantial mist-form allowed her to travel unobserved and over vast areas with minimal risk of discovery. She searched the Antarctic for months for us, before eventually finding the Savage Land. 

Amelia returned to show us the way to a sheltered valley she had picked out for us, but the cost of her search was high. She had spent so long as a mist that she could no longer remain truly solid herself. She managed to transport us to our new locale but after that she could never reintegrate properly and knew that she would soon drift apart forever. 

Amelia and I grew very close in her last months, talking with each other long into the night, and I still miss her company. She spoke often of Cain's brother, a man she had loved, and who had taught her the potential of peaceful co-existance. I use many of her lessons myself, to teach newcomers the rules we live by. At last she could no longer stay together, and dissipated into an evening breeze. I sometimes wonder, in my more fanciful moments, whether she is still present in any form around us.

It was shortly after her "death" that I learned that I had my own price to pay for my decision to cut off my second sight. My gift tapped into chronal energy, and I was still sensitive to time in a unique way. However, with me consciously focussing on not seeing the future, the future sought another outlet through me. I eventually found that my powers were no longer sight based, but triggered by touch. I was no longer strictly precognitive, but partially telemetric, I could see the future (and sometimes the past) of anything or anyone I touched.

It was both a potent new gift and a curse. If I touched a person I could not control the cascade of unwanted images, not something I would ever wish on anyone. 

I believed that by withdrawing from the worlds interaction I removed my ability to see how my interaction might change the future. I no longer saw multiple visions of possible futures, I saw with absolute certainty what would occur. Now, I wonder whether that was mere cowardice, and my constant refusal to act meant that I resigned myself to the most likely future and ignored the others.

Despite this, Avalon was now established, but we soon realised that we were now _too_ isolated, and it was not possible for others to find their way to us. Having sought secrecy for so long, we realised we might selfishly have cut off our only means of long term survival. 

We were still discussing plans of action some time later, when a young woman simply appeared out of thin air in a flash of, so I am told, silver fire. She was exhausted, skin and bone and near death, but we did our best to help her recover. 

Her name was Jemaine Szardos, a young gypsy woman (barely a girl really) from a long family line of sorceresses. She told that Apocalypse had launched secret attacks against many mystics around the world in his first weeks of power. The scope of their abilities made them too much of a wild card for his tastes. Her mother Margali had been an accomplished sorceress who died in a conveniently spontaneous plague outbreak that sounded like the work of the Destroyer. Jemaine had barely escaped herself, using her nascent powers to teleport and cleanse herself of infection. She had hidden from the clean-up crews that Apocalypse had sent in, refining her powers as best she could on her own.

I will never know what good fortune directed her towards us. She says it has something to do with being a witch, "If you play with Fate, then Fate will occasionally play with you." That was enough of an explanation for me.

Her magic bolstered the protective shields that some members of our population maintained to protect us from most forms of detection that Apocalypse could conceive.

In the outside world, word of Avalon spread a little at a time, whispers of a haven for all who sought peace, and in time Jemaine took on the role of Ferrywoman, preferring her own company and shunning most human contact, but eager to play her part in maintaining Avalon. In some ways I think we reminded her of her old tribe.

Though she usually worked on the last stages of the passage to Avalon that the refugees took, I know that Jemaine would sometimes use her magic to vanish and reappear with individuals who never needed to take the Devil's Gallop. No one ever commented on the why's and wherefor's of her choices, but they always seemed to be timely and appropriate. I suspect some form of magical divination, but never argue with results. 

Those of us who were the first arrivals knew we could never leave, lest one of Apocalypse's tame psi-rippers tear it's location from our thoughts. The Ferrywoman has proven immune to all forms of psionic coercion, but even she has to be careful as there are far less subtle methods of obtaining information available to Apocalypse.

We grew in strength and confidence over the years, and Avalon prospered. Life was hard work for us all, but none starved or went without shelter. Those with mutant powers used them for the benefit of all, as did those with purely human skills. Harmony was maintained by all and for all. Some of us used our real names, other's used nicknames, or codenames, or names they picked themselves. We never asked questions in that regard.

I made some of the best friends of my life here; Jennie, who could turn herself as thin as paper, but whose thought and dreams were deep; Lillian, whose diamond hard skin hid a vulnerable soul and the man known only as Timeshadow, who had been able to shift backwards and forwards in time for a few seconds until some unspeakable experiment of the Dark Beast forced him to forever live a frustrating five seconds in the future, out-racing some horrible agony that I could never, mercifully, perceive.

Then of course, there was Douglas. My adoptive son was one of Jemaine's "special cases", but on first meeting Douglas seemed the most utterly normal person I ever met. I didn't even suspect he was a mutant at first, most people don't. He was as traumatised as many who came to us, who had only ever known the reign of Apocalypse for his entire life, but still with that independent spark burning inside him that typified those who found their way here.

However, when I first took his hand in greeting (as I do all newcomers), I was astonished to see how much our destiny's would intertwine, with each other and Avalon. He was a lost child, and I was feeling far more alone than usual at that time. We would each fill a void within the other. There is a certain, petty, part of me that wonders how much of it was wanting to prove to Raven that I could be a successful mother too, but I try not to think about that too much.

Douglas learned of my sensitivity to being touched and from then on as a courtesy, always wore a bodysuit and gloves, even when it was uncomfortably hot to do so, just so there would be no accidental physical contact to disturb me.

Douglas never spoke about what happened to his birth parents, but whatever it was had a lasting effect on him, the many nights he awoke shouting their names in the months after arriving were testament to that. 

It affected him in other ways too; though mature in manner most of the time, there were moments when he seemed to regress to a much younger age, playing with butterflies and staring at the beauty around him as if it were brand new and he'd never glimpsed it before. A moment later he'd be back to his serious-faced self. The psi-chiatrist I quietly asked did not break the Oath of Privacy she had sworn on arriving in Avalon, but did assure me it was not a serious problem. In many ways I envied him those moments of innocence.

Avalon had been starting to splinter into disparate factions because there were not enough common languages to communicate properly. We had been small at first so it wasn't a problem, but now we were large enough for it to be a serious consideration. Without communication such situations usually deteriorate swiftly and my dream was within months of crumbling.

Douglas knew his powers were linked to language and did his best to act as an interpreter, but he couldn't be everywhere at once. Over time, and with training from several of the resident telepath's, we discovered a new and unexpected aspect of his gift. 

Rather than having to do all the communicating verbally and in person, we found he could spread a psychic field around Avalon that allowed all residents to tap into his power. Initially it allowed people to understand whatever was being spoken by anyone else, but the power was cumulative too; People started to learn each other's languages simply by being near Douglas. He created, albeit indirectly, a new and invaluable unity between our inhabitants.

Ironically Douglas never has been much of a talker, often going for hours without saying a word, simply because he  felt he had nothing worth saying. An inferiority complex is a luxury few can afford these days so, partly out of respect for me, but mostly because the inhabitants of Avalon truly valued and loved their young interpreter, their universal cypher, everyone went out of their way to involve him in discussions. Gradually he came out of his shell and I customarily took him to meet newcomers, where they would be sure of a welcome in their native language.

I recall the time that a large purple wildcat appeared with Jemaine. It took Douglas more than a few minutes to establish that this was a mutant werecat, rather than a "mere" freak of nature. I can recall them yowling and hissing at each other for so long that people thought he was being attacked and came to help us. With the help of our telepaths and much patience, "McCavity" as we agreed to call her became our best hunter of small game, though she still rarely socialised, apart from with Douglas and myself.

Mercifully for someone who has to translate so much, Doug has always been a good listener. Often he was the only one who would spend time with Cain, as his constant rambling about his dead brother did tend to grate on people. 

Again, I wonder how long things might have lasted if it weren't for that thrice damned monster Apocalypse and his madness. Now, however, I know things cannot be the same. 

Raven and her own son arrived in Avalon, seeking me. What I thought would be gloriously happy day, possibly proving wrong the prediction I had seen when I touched the woman calling herself Switchback, instead brought about that very chaos. Even my joy at hearing Raven's voice again was curbed by the bitter edge it had picked up, and our first words were harsh ones. 

Her son was little better, belittling my efforts whilst knowing nothing of the struggle that I and the Avalonians endured to make a life here. Had I the time I would have tried to make him understand, but there was no time, no time at all.

A group of Apocalypse's killers had trailed Raven and Kurt. They called themselves the Pale Riders; a walking corpse called Wade, and a psychotic killer called Damask who spread destruction as soon as they arrived. I guess there must have been others who didn't make it, as surely Apocalypse (Even given his remarkable gift for pomposity) would not be so foolish as to only send a two man assault team against a large gathering of mutants. 

The damage they wreaked was enough though; an explosion they caused caught Douglas in it's blast. Without thinking I knelt and checked him for injury as best a blind woman can. I was relieved to find no wound's but I was so caught up in that relief that I cradled his head, and in doing so I touched his flesh. In that unspeakable moment I saw the short and violent chain of events that will lead to his inevitable death. I have seen that he will die saving me so that, in turn, the world might stand a chance of freedom despite Apocalypse's efforts, though at the cost of Avalon itself. 

For the first time in decades I have truly tried to activate my second sight again, to see if agreeing to leave now might in some way change the path of destiny, but I have spent too long limiting my power for me to be able to restore it at such short notice. Any action I could take might make things infinitely worse for us all.

It also hurts knowing that Raven's son will say almost exactly the same, hurtfully honest, things to my son that Raven said to me, just before we parted. Douglas, though, will have the courage to understand what is being said to him, though that understanding will cost him his life.

At a deep level I know that even if I could see a path of events that saves him, I might not take it, because to do so would not only deny him the right to make the choices that he will make and Avalon has always been about freedom. I hate myself for that thought, but cannot eradicate it.

I do not see beyond Douglas' appointed death, it was _his_ timeline I was seeing, but I know what I will do. I will leave Avalon and it's survivors behind me perhaps forever. Magneto has sought my help in defeating Apocalypse, and I will not waste the opportunity that Doug will buy for me, for us all.

They used to say that the worst thing that can happen to a parent is to outlive their child. I assure you there are worse destinies.

The End


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