Subject: [OTL]: Threads Rewoven 3/3 Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 15:44:57 -0700 (PDT) From: Persephone See first chapter for notes/disclaimer/summary --------------- Threads Rewoven by Persephone Chapter 3/3 --------------- Kevin drew a deep breath and looked around during a local lull. Franklin Richards was a very nice child, though he had the feeling their conversation had started to unnerve people at some point. He hadn't minded Illyana Rasputin attaching herself affectionately to him, either, even if she'd subsequently found it necessary to explain to everyone within earshot exactly what it had been like to be resurrected. All things considered, she did a remarkably good job. He didn't, in fact, object to any of the specific incidents or people at the gathering. There were just so *many* of them. Laughter caught his attention, and he turned to see that the group from which it originated included Jamie Madrox -- one of him, anyway -- and the sister he still hadn't had a chance to talk to. She laughed as well, or smiled at least, but Kevin thought she seemed somehow uncomfortable. When he saw her slip out a few minutes later, he made his own way to his mother, who was watching the girl's progress worriedly, and murmured that he was going out to check on her. Moira gave him a grateful and approving smile; fortunately he didn't have to specify whom he meant to follow. He was only a few steps into the hallway when he heard his name. "Kevin." "Aye?" He turned and blinked up at Piotr Rasputin, who glanced back and then stepped past him, further into the hall. "Are you in a hurry?" "I don't think so..." Piotr paced a few more steps; Kevin followed, and Piotr turned to him. "You have given my sister life again, returned her to me. I would have done anything for that, but I never hoped -- thank you. That you still did so, despite what lies between us....." Kevin shut his eyes and remembered the burn of his powers consuming him, resentment, desperate fear and determination and a savage, perverse joy in the kill, enjoyment of taking a new body that worked... sudden irrational anger against Moira, the agony of metal fists punching into his energy form and the drawn-out shuddering pain of discorporation. Eventually overwhelming relief, followed finally, finally, by the horror his actions deserved. When he opened his eyes, Piotr was starting to turn away. "It needed doing, Piotr. I should thank you," Kevin said softly. He offered a hand. Piotr, after a minuscule, surprised hesitation, returned the grip and then disappeared, considerately without asking why Kevin had been trying to sneak out of his own party. Kevin continued down the hall, then paused as he past a bathroom and entered to use it. A little awkwardly, but at least he remembered. He noticed as he washed his hands that his eyes were green. Was that right? He wasn't certain. At any rate, it was now. There was a peculiar smell drifting across the night air when he finally stepped outdoors. He tried how well he could sense with energies in this form... burning leaf matter... adamantium.... "Logan?" He heard a growl, but nothing else, and Logan moved further away from his path. Kevin decided not to push it and kept walking. ********** Rahne was sitting quietly on a cliff-ledge, not leaning back against the rough rocks behind her, staring out at the moonlight-silvered waves and the swath of mackerel clouds that obscured nearly half the sky. Jamie hadn't meant anything, of course. They'd all been together again for once, reminiscing about their days in X-Factor. Hard days, often, but they'd had fun too, so there had been a lot of laughter as they traded memories and told stories to people who hadn't been there. Of course, the fact that Guido and Jamie had been telling most of the stories probably had a lot to do with that. She supposed her infatuation with Alex Summers *had* looked rather amusing from outside. If it had only been a normal crush, she would have been embarrassed enough -- but perhaps she'd have been able to laugh at herself now, too, in that case. Then again, maybe she wouldn't. She'd been bonded to him by the Genoshans, made a *slave*, and she'd behaved so shamefully! Rahne tilted her face to let the sea breeze cool her cheeks. Jamie liked to laugh; he wasn't too easily embarrassed himself, as a rule, as long as he could make people think of what he'd done as a joke, and he probably didn't realize how humiliating she still found the memory. Not malicious. She was being silly... but it still wasn't funny to her. Footsteps crunched softly on the path; she didn't look up until they paused directly behind her for some time. Kevin studied her and the ground for a long moment before identifying the path she'd taken down to the end of the ledge, then took a few steps more along the path before turning aside to step carefully down the steep slope. Rahne, shifted slightly into a transitional form for the warmth fur provided, caught his scent as he came down beside the cliff wall so that the breeze could no longer carry it as readily away. She looked up and tried to quell her sigh as he sat down beside her. If she had wanted company, she would have stayed indoors.... Kevin settled beside her on the rocks, hesitated briefly, and finally began with "Who are you, and why do you keep calling my mum 'Mum'?" Rahne blinked and straightened; the only thing mitigating the feeling she'd just been slapped in the face was his scent. By that, Kevin was feeling decidedly awkward himself and hadn't really meant to start the conversation with an attack. "I --" He realized what he'd said and how it could be taken just as she opened her mouth. "Och, I'm sorry -- I didna mean that how it sounded," he said hurriedly. "It's just that --" He stopped. "And now I've interrupted you, haven't I." He sounded so dismal about it that Rahne couldn't quite help a sympathetic smile. "'Tis all right. What were ye going to say?" "Only that I hadn't known I had a sister, and 'tis a rather disconcerting thing to have missed. Seems Mum could have told me when you were born, at least, or that I'd have noticed you were there when I --" Maybe he shouldn't get into that. "Ohh. I see.... No, you wouldna have known it when I was born. My name's Rahne -- Rahne Sinclair. I became Moira's ward when I was fourteen." Kevin considered this for a moment. "How old are you now?" "Nineteen." "So you did get here when I knew I hadn't been paying attention!" Rahne blinked at him again and laughed hesitantly. "Is that a problem?" "No -- a relief. I couldna make sense of my not having known about you before." He smiled at her, equal parts the relief he'd claimed and shyness. "It did seem a shame, too -- does still -- the little time I've seen you so far, I think I like you." The smile turned wry. "Even if I didna do very well when I finally got the chance to talk to you." "'Twas hardly an unreasonable question." "No -- but you took it as if I'd said you shouldna. I did only want to know why." Rahne shifted uncomfortably under the gentle tone. It wasn't polite of her to have shown that, but she couldn't deny it truthfully. "Well -- you really are her own son. I'm not her daughter, exactly; she never adopted me, even if -- if we think of each other that way." "She was glad when I said I'd go see if you were all right. You belong here at least as much as I do. She loves you." She looked at Kevin suspiciously. "I ken she loves me." No matter how busy Moira was. "Are you reading my mind?" For she'd just been thinking about how she didn't belong to Muir and Moira quite the same way as she. Kevin had the grace to look and smell abashed. "Some. I've been accustomed for years to sensing things by energy patterns, and made out how to do it for thoughts when I tried -- I still pick up some things, whether I try or not. I'll try to stop if you like...." He paused and raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you reading *me*, from the way I smell? Or did I get that wrong?" "Well... aye." Rahne blushed a little again, under the fine fur. "Scent, and infrared from the heat in your body. I can tell how you're feeling, mostly -- unless you change how that works." "I don't think I know how," Kevin replied meditatively. "It seems only fair, though, I suppose." He gave her a warm smile. "Friends, then? I'm glad to have you for a little sister; if I'm to have an unexpected family member, I'm just glad for a nice one. I don't want to have you thinking I don't want you here or any such foolishness." Rahne looked up at the smile, returning it while she looked over blond hair and green eyes and fine features in the moonlight, and wondered fleetingly if she really wanted a man that handsome thinking of her strictly as a little sister. Then she blushed hotter beneath the fur, desperately glad of the concealment, and hoped he hadn't been reading *that* thought! "You barely know me yet," she demurred. "You smiled at Gilbert." That didn't seem quite enough explanation. "'Twas a good start." So she had. It had seemed the thing to do. Rahne smiled faintly out into the salt breeze. "You're very fond of him, aren't you." "Aye." Kevin turned his head toward her, one hand shifting slightly on the rocky ledge, and she smelled... uncertainty. Not about what he was saying, more the nervous kind. "We were together for -- well, it's been a few years. He was frightened at first -- I can't say I wasn't, being drawn back together, after all that time dispersed, and *into* somebody no less. Neither of us was thinking too clearly, and we wanted things *simple*." He looked sheepish. "That's the explanation for the polyhedra I turned Edinburgh into, though no excuse." "You didn't do much lasting damage that time, not counting taking Gilbert...." "I don't." The words were sharp enough that Rahne looked up, startled, as he went on. "His mother was going around using him as an energy-sponge, absorbing it even when it hurt him -- my own energy had some inclination to seek out another body anyway." He winced. "It -- she -- I pushed his powers too far and he burst, but I... can't regret taking him with me. His mother dinna want him, either, not really --" "You can't blame the Lady Moira," Rahne argued, slipping back into formality as if that should somehow counteract her interruption. "She wasn't herself then --" "I ken -- and I don't, but I did." Kevin lowered his eyes to his hands, then peered down the sheer drop to the breakers. "'Twas just as well, perhaps, to drive me away then. I caused enough damage on my own, even when 'twasn't pain I was after. If I'd fallen under the influence of the Shadow King...." Rahne thought of the possibilities -- the hedonistic, sadistic mind of Amahl Farouk given access to Proteus's reality-warping powers. The breeze suddenly felt colder. She pushed the thought away. "What was it you did want, then?" Kevin closed his eyes. "I... wasn't thinking too clearly much of the time. That time wasn't the worst, of course.... When I first left my body for another host, 'twas that I wanted to be free -- out of the cell, out of the body that was devouring itself. I didn't realize 'twould only be worse outside -- and then I'd done murder, and as I went on -- well, I wanted to survive, to stay free... and to kill my father." "What!" She didn't even vocalize; the word was shaped on an indrawn breath, a sharp gasp. She really shouldn't be so shocked; she'd heard the stories of what he'd done. It was just so strange to hear him say it so calmly, when he'd just repented and brought everyone back.... Everyone *else*. "He deserved it," Kevin said defensively. Obstinately, Rahne thought as she watched the shift of his body heat. "He hurt her -- I know he did; I knew more than she ever thought I understood. Came close to killing her before... well, before I was born. And he wouldn't let her alone even from Edinburgh. I'm not bringing him back." Rahne bit her lip. Whatever her doubts about the morals, in honesty she had to admit to herself that she could not and wasn't likely to bring herself to *ask* Kevin to bring her father back. "I dinna like mine either," she offered slowly. "I... was raised until I was fourteen by Reverend Craig. I never tried to kill him, though I did stand up to the man a bit ago." It had felt good, too. She took a deep breath. "But I -- I killed a man once, lost my temper when he struck his sister and killed her for... for helping me." She shuddered, remembering the sensation of flesh tearing under her teeth and claws and the taste of blood. "That was his excuse, too. 'She made me angry,' he said. I was wrong, I ken -- and I don't feel as if I should be forgiven, though I do believe 'tis possible. And... I'm not sure I'd ask him back, either, if I could. So I don't... agree... but I think I understand. And I've done it, so I'm in no state to judge." Rahne listened to the waves fling themselves at the base of the cliff for a while as neither of them spoke. She didn't know how he'd take that. She did understand the heat of rage for another. She understood, too, that despite the claim "X-Men don't kill," several of Xavier's recruits and various asociates had done so, and not all outside their tenure with him. Professor Xavier himself had been a soldier, once.... Then, too, there was a certain vigilante mindset -- though she'd been on a government-sponsored team at the time and had even, technically, turned herself in once she'd worked up the courage to report. No prosecution. Finally, a direct order to stop arguing and a direct statement that nothing was going to be done. She'd have few friends indeed if she rejected every one of her acquaintance who took it less seriously than she. And Kevin... well, he'd clearly realized murder was wrong, at least of those who'd done you no harm, and he'd done more than most could to atone. And again... she had no room to speak. "Your own guilt's more effective than a condemnation." Kevin sounded troubled; she blinked in surprise at his words and looked up from the sea to meet a slight frown. "I'd have to think on that. But I think, even when it's wrong to kill them, there are some 'twould be worse to bring back." "Maybe so." She was surprised again at his next question. "What was he like?" "...Who?" "Reverend Craig. You said you didn't like him." "Oh." Rahne thought hard and tried to be fair. "He was... he was very stern, very strict. Alone that's all right, I suppose, but he -- he made me feel worthless. I have to thank him, a little, for he did keep me alive and he did teach me about God." She listened for a moment to the waves, far below, and smelled sea-salt and Kevin's uncertainty. She wasn't saying what he'd expected. "But he taught me fear and humility without teaching me love and protection. I learned those later from... Mum, and from Kurt -- a man I thought at first looked like a demon." "I remember him," Kevin said. "Blue?" "Yes." When no further comment on Kurt seemed forthcoming, she went on, "I learned other things, too. It seems Reverend Craig *was* my father, and my mother... well, when he told me I was a child of sin, he may have meant *his*. Maybe he raised me as he did because he didn't know any other way, or because he felt guilty, but that didn't make it any better -- and if guilt was the reason taking it out on me wasn't enough, as I fear he was doing the same to another young girl none too long ago." She paused and added tightly, "Then when I was fourteen, I manifested as a werewolf, and he said I was damned and led a mob to try to kill me. 'Twas a long time before I could see *this* as a blessing, I'll tell you!" Rahne shifted a bit more into a transitional form by way of demonstration, just as Kevin reached to touch her arm. He started when his hand fell on fur, then looked down at it and worked his fingers just under the layer of longer protective hairs. "'Tis very soft," he said when he saw her looking at him. He drew back and added less certainly, "I didn't mean to offend --" "No." She shook her head quickly. "No -- I was only surprised. That's all." "Well, so was I." He smiled; the scent of worried embarrassment faded. "It is very nice fur." A tiny hesitation. "I haven't been very used to soft things." Rahne thought of the Mutant X room, the scent and tang on the air. "All metal?" she ventured softly. Kevin looked a bit surprised. "...Aye, I suppose so, but iI was thinking more of fire. Energy -- it's been a long time since I didn't perceive things in terms of energy fields. I think 'twas about the same time things started disintegrating." At her questioning look, he elaborated, "When my powers first began getting out of control, everything near me began tending to... fall apart in different ways. That was why mum first made the room and the energy fields -- not so much as a prison, but to keep me from destroying everything I touched -- including my own body." He sighed wistfully. "'Twas a brilliant invention, I ken, and she spent so much time working because she had a lot to do and she was trying to help, but... I suppose it's not fair to say how much didn't work, but I did so want to have her *with* me." Rahne looked away, at once acutely uncomfortable. She'd wished at times herself that Moira would pay her more attention -- at first it had probably been only her own insecurity as to whether she truly mattered to anyone, but later on.... She knew Moira had been busy, as always, but recovering from Genosha's mutate process had been very trying. The trade of her human form for her free will had been hard enough even on its own, as ugly as she had felt -- and on top of that, the combination of adolescent hormones accentuated by the wolf-form, and the bond to Alex.... The bond her old teammates had been joking about. Rahne felt her cheeks heat as she was reminded of why she had left the party in the first place. "...Rahne?" At the sound of her name, she jerked her gaze back from the ocean she hadn't really been seeing and focused on Kevin's cautiously concerned face. Hesitant fingers touched her arm again. "What's wrong? -- If I might ask." "I...." She wished she thought the thin layer of fur remaining on her skin was really doing anything to hide her blushes. She dropped her eyes. "I shouldn't be keeping you out here away from your own party." Kevin shifted a little, leaning back against the rocks. "To tell the truth, I was getting...." He shrugged; Rahne scented faint embarrassment not her own. "A wee bit overwhelmed. I'm not used to so much company; it's... well. I don't mean to sound as if I'm no glad they all came." He paused. "I don't believe that was what was on your mind, though." Rahne sighed. "I'm sorry." Staring down at the ledge between them, she admitted, "It's... I went through the Genoshan mutate process a few years ago -- you can find more about how it works in the files -- I don't so much mind the effects on my powers now, and I did learn a lot, but I was...." She swallowed. "I was... well... bonded to Alex Summers, and we were both brainwashed. And even when he recovered and I had a will of my own -- at least when I was shifted -- I... the bond was still there and I... I behaved very badly." "And... were your teammates joking about it?" He'd noticed that? "Aye. They don't mean any harm, of course; I'm just silly enough to be embarrassed when they tease." "It doesn't seem that silly. Maybe they're silly to find it funny." Rahne snorted but gave him a grateful smile. "Oh, well, I'm sure it is from outside. You may have noticed Alex wasn't laughing himself." "No, he wasn't, was he?" Kevin murmured. "I didn't intend to remind you, though I'm not sure how -- oh. Of course. --I'm sorry." "I wanted her time and attention," Rahne admitted in a low voice, nearly inaudible even to her own ears. "But I don't like to -- I shouldn't criticize." She started at the feel of a hand on her shoulder. "Mum," Kevin said seriously, "will work herself nigh to death in her laboratories trying to *fix* a problem before she'll think to come out to comfort somebody, and even with her regular work she'll sometimes forget to eat anything but coffee. Very odd given her training as a physician *and* a psychiatrist; she ought to know better. And she has a foul temper after too much whisky, though that's not *my* memory but Jack the bartender's." He smiled ruefully. "Don't try to argue with me, for you can't. But it doesn't mean we love her less." Rahne stared at him. "So it's not just my mind you've been reading." "No. It comes naturally, though I'm learning to tone it down, and my own experience... there's some I wouldn't trade but it only goes so far. But you agree." It wasn't quite a question, but she answered anyway. "Aye." She sighed and shifted to lean back against the rock, wriggling a bit to find a comfortably smooth spot between protrusions for her shoulders. "Good. We can help each other pry her out of the lab at suitable intervals." Kevin grinned at her. Rahne blinked, startled, and then laughed. "Well... that we can." They settled back again with the sea breeze eddying around them against the rocks; Rahne closed her eyes and tasted it -- salt and rock and fish -- and then, still looking only at the intricate heat pattern of blood in her eyelids, she concentrated on Kevin's scent. He smelled human enough -- probably more so than she, with the hint of the canine she carried whenever she was transformed enough to sense it. She couldn't tell that he'd only lately reconstructed his body from pure energy, though his scent was a little like those of other energy manipulators she knew. It was more like Moira's. With great power, if one asked Spiderman, came great responsibility. If one looked at far too many others, though, it also commonly came in company with the temptation to hubris. Rahne sat up and turned toward Kevin only to find him doing the same, Mouth already opening at the start of her name. They both checked, then laughed with only a little of the earlier awkwardness -- at least on his part. "I'm sorry. What were you about to say?" He hesitated, then shook his head. "Ladies first?" Rahne bit her lip; the question seemed more forward after the interruption, somehow. "I was wondering," she said, leaning back nce more and fixing her eyes on the dark horizon, "whether you believe in God." What she left silent was her real fear: "Or do you believe you are one?" Kevin let out a breath and stared out over the ocean himself, head tilting back after a moment and his eyes slipping from the dark shimmering water and silver-lit streaks of foam, past mackerel clouds with the moon peeking hazily through them, up to the darker clear sky and the pinprick fire of stars. He gazed upward as moments slipped by, until Rahne began to wonder if he had perhaps forgotten the question. He'd spent all that time among the stars; perhaps his mind was out soaring among them again and twirling in their dance. She didn't -- quite -- mean for her motion to get his attention, but as she shifted her foot a tiny bit of rock went skittering down the face of the cliff and drew Kevin back down to Earth. "Aye," he breathed finally. "There's more out there than I can touch, and fire woven in ways I don't think could be done from here." Though relieved, Rahne wasn't certain she understood that, but then he turned to her. "I imagine you know the Bible more than I do, but I have read it some. One lasted the longest of any of the books in my... room, though whether you attribute that to divine intervention or the gilt-edged pages...." Her mouth quirked at that, and then they both laughed and fell silent again for a bit. Not long this time, though; after a moment Rahne remembered to ask, "But what was it you meant to say?" "Oh." Kevin chuckled, a little self-deprecatingly, his scent suggesting genuine humor but faint embarrassment. "Nothing quite so profound -- I was going to ask if you'd much mind showing me how you transform. I... think I might be able to do it too, if I tried." She blinked. "You want to... be a wolf?" "For a while, if you don't mind showing me. It sounds... interesting." He grinned a little. "Fun." Rahne got to her feet on the ledge and stretched. "It always used to be," she admitted slowly, staring down at him." It occurred to her that his eyes must be glowing, for there shouldn't be enough light else to see the green in his eyes. "It's been a long time since I shifted just to play, and the transitional form's often more use -- the teeth, claws, fur, and strength with hands and speech as well." She smiled ruefully. "I don't think I've done it just for fun since before I stopped feeling guilty about enjoying it. Funny that." "Well... wolves need packmates, don't they?" She laughed, though thoughts of Hrimhari flashed a little painfully across her mind. "Remind me to tell you about the wolves of Asgard one day," she said, and then because the wind was stirring her hair and she didn't *want* to go back to being pensive right now, she changed forms swiftly through the transitional one, stripped down to the bodysuit that would change to a collar as she finished, and moved on to the wolf she hadn't been for a surprisingly long time. Kevin tilted his head, staring at the collared wolf suddenly before him. "That I will. But no tonight, I take it." She shook herself at being caught out. "Would you show me again? I'd like to get it right...." She did, and the third time she shifted he did too. They stood for a moment smelling the suddenly richer eddy of air around them. Kevin wagged his tail once, slowly, and then Rahne crouched and leapt over him entirely, dashing up the path off the ledge as he turned with a yip to give chase. She ran and hid behind a rock until he found her, with wolf-senses or energy-sight, and two wolves played hide-and seek under the moon until the game turned to chase and to pretend fights. Rahne loved it. The silver light was beautiful; the wind in her fur and nose and the ground beneath her feet felt *good*. It really had been too long since she'd turned wolf and simply enjoyed it -- there was something wrong when she seemed to remember having *more* fun when she'd still at least half believed her wolf form to be a thing of the devil. Kevin sprang at her playfully one last time and they rolled over, deadly teeth brushing fur as they snapped at each other, then finally left off to lie panting in the grass. She could stil hear the noise of the party from where they lay, talk and laughter and now music, until at last she shifted back and went over to retrieve her outer clothing. "We should go in, I suppose." She came back to look down at Kevin, who stared back up with a wolf's eyes and came curiously to smell her hand. "I'm monopolizing one of the guests of honor." He shifted back himself to stand beside her, looking toward the building. "Well, you're good company. And that was fun." He tilted his head slightly. "They're dancing now!" "Can you dance?" He sounded rather pleased about it, but when would he have had a chance to learn? Kevin turned his head to give her a dazzling smile, but quenched the startling energy-glow from his eyes and mouth when Rahne blinked over fast-contracting pupils. "It's all patterns and feeling." He took her hand and tugged at it, some of the abandon of the wolf-play still in his face. "I used to dance with stars. Come on, I'll show you." **********