Everything

I give her my first sign about a week after Logan and Scott visit.

                It wasn’t orthodox, nor was it very practical, but I needed to let her know that I was still keeping an eye on her. I don’t think I’ve ever had an appreciation for animal shelters more…

*.*

                After a few days of boohooing, I pull myself together and go down to an animal shelter.

Grieving wasn’t easy for me to do; I spent about two days in bed watching black and white films. I couldn’t stop the tears that came in the middle of the day or at the dead of night. It was as if someone had ripped out my soul and spat on it.

Virgil is in school, and I am getting lonely, so I end up going to the local animal shelter. I walk amongst the cages holding these poor, desolate animals, whining and shaking as they turn pitiful eyes up at me.

                I really wish I could get a dog. But I just can’t find the right one. Both Virgil and I love big dogs. Sighing, I pace the halls, when someone or something begins to guide me towards the back of the shelter. I am not even aware that I stand infront of the vicious mutt’s cage until I hear his bark. I look down at him, and realize that he is looking up at me, as if trying to tell me something. He wags his tail and barks again, this time in a friendly manner. I kneel and gently pet his ear. He barks again.

                A girl comes up to me and remarks,

                “That there is a half-wolf, ma’am.” I smile. A little bit of danger. I then say,

“Aw…he’s nothing but a big softie.” Upon looking into his light blue eyes and seeing the trust that lay there, I say, “I’ll take him!” The girl’s gum pops, and she seems to be shocked into silence. It is several moments before she weakly questions me,

“Are you sure you want him?” I nod vigorously, “Yes, I’ll take him home right away.” She makes a funny face, and leads me to the front. Much to her shock, he follows after I talk softly to him. You have to know how to talk their language.

*.*

                The newest member of the family, after much coaxing and bathing, is now sleeping on a mat placed in the kitchen just for him. He bites me a few times, but after much struggling, I manage to get him into a collar that announced him as ‘Dante’. He was half-wolf, alright.

                It was only 1:34; I still have time to kill. The house is clean (It always is, when I’m not working, I’m home), so I try to watch T.V. Oprah is on, so I watch. Virgil watches this show devotedly, even though his friends used to tease him about it. Somehow, he got 3 members of the football team, 2 members of the soccer team, and 5 boxers addicted to it too. I laugh slightly as I remember one father coming over here to thank me, his son’s behavior had improved since he befriended my son, then stopping in his tracks and remarking,

“Little lady, you look young enough to be my daughter. How old are you again?” I told him, and he was stunned. I never lie about my age. I use it to motivate others. The screen randomly shuts off, so I groan and walk upstairs to sleep, clutching my pillow to my chest. It gets so lonely sometimes. Turning onto myself, I am fully asleep when I hear loud, deep barking come from the kitchen. I moan slightly, getting up out of bed to see what the issue is. I watch the clock; it reads ‘3:13’. Virgil should be home soon.

                When I get downstairs, Dante is in the kitchen doorway, ears flattened against his head, eyes pinpointed, fur bristled as he barks at something I cannot see.  I snap at Dante,

                “What are you barking at?!” He turns to me, whines, and barks again. I come forward; looking for something, anything, but there is nothing there. Or so I think.

                I feel an icy hand on my back and freeze. It moves up to my head and strokes it gently. I nearly scream. Then it vanishes, and Dante stops barking, yawns, and curls up on his mat. I hold my chest, breathing heavily as the doorbell rings. It takes me a moment to get myself together, but when I finally do, I call out,

                “Yes!” I frown and open the door.

“Hey, darlin’.”

It’s Logan, but this time, there is a tall, regal woman with him, along with an even taller man. The woman is blue eyed and white haired, with dark skin and the man is blue eyed and raven-haired. But he’s pretty young. Although maybe I shouldn’t be talking. Smiling slightly, I welcome,

                “Logan, hello. Um…” I let them in, and wipe my palms on my jeans. Then I ask him,

                “What are you doing here again…?” Logan fixed me with a hard look, then it softened, “I wanted to keep an eye on Elf Jr.” I couldn’t help but smile,

                “He isn’t here right now, he’s still at school.” The woman asked, voice gentle,

                “You…you are Zelda?” I look at her, and suddenly feel very embarrassed, “Yes. My name is Zelda.” What else was I supposed to say? I silently fiddled with a magazine until the woman says,

                “You are a pretty as he used to describe you.” My head snaps up, and I let out a strangled noise. Then she laughs,

                “This…son that Scott and Logan told us about is very new and a bit of a shock to us…but we knew about you…perhaps not the depth of your relationship, but we had an idea of who you were.” I blush and look off to the side. He used to ‘describe’ me? Funny. I thought I told him to keep his life and my life separate. Oh well, it doesn’t matter now, he’s dead. I jiggle my leg, and then state,

                “Hm. He did, huh?” I sighed heavily, and mutter, “I’ll never know why he went into the whole superhero gig.” I suppose I must look pretty desolate at this point, because the young man comforts me, stating,

                “He lived a good life, da? He died a noble death.” I raised an eyebrow, he was Russian…no, Siberian. I shrug, stating, “I suppose so.” But then there is the gnawing question, how did he die? I decided not to ask, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know at the moment, I was already in a slump. I gently said,

                “I see.” The door opened and closed, and I heard Virgil drop his things in the hallway, a terrible habit of his. He called out,

                “Mom?” I called back,

                “In the living room, Virgil.” I heard him mutter softly about not ever being able to get used to that, and he walks into the living room. He sees Logan and says,

                “Hey there, um…Logan, right?” Then he blinks at the other two, and asks me,

                “Um…” I shrug at him and mouth ‘No idea’.  The white haired woman smiles and introduces herself,

                “I am Ororo Munroe.” The young man introduces himself as Piotr Rasputin. Then I tell them,

                “If you’re here to talk to Virgil, I can leave, you know.” Virgil then laughed, “If you’re wondering what I can do as a power…” Virgil vanished in black and red smoke, and reappeared at the other part of the room.

                “Ta-da. I can teleport. And there there’s this…” Uh-oh. I go to tell Virgil to take it outside, but it’s too late, he blows a thin stream of fire into the air, accidentally setting the curtain on fire. We all rush to put it out.

                With that crisis averted, Virgil then asks,

                “So you guys all knew my father, huh…” They nod, and he starts to question them.

                “What was he like?” Logan takes a deep breath,

                “Man was one of the greatest pranksters I’d ever met. I remember one time; he dyed Ro’s hair yellow.” I looked up from chopping vegetables in the kitchen to see Ororo blush heavily. I smile a little, they got that right. Logan continues,

                “Well, he could be a pretty serious fella too. Stuck to his faith until he died. Or…so we thought.” I looked up. His faith had been part of the reason I didn’t try again with him. Before Virgil was born, I found something out that banished any thought of religion for me.

                I was what they called an Animus Sempiternus. I was an immortal soul, a powerful spirit-child. Spirit children could be born to humans, just like mutants. Because of the mystery surrounding me, I’ve never pushed my powers beyond what they are at now. Heaven and hell…I would not go to either place. I was one of the ancient spirit races older than time itself. Many ‘laws of nature’ did not apply to me. There was no one to teach me what I could do; so much of my life had been lived by trial and error. I sometimes danced and discovered I created rends in the threads of space when I did.

                But something registered. “So you thought? What does that mean?” Ororo explains,

                “Several days after his death, we found his will. Amongst it was a series of letters he’d written. To you, to his mother, to his father, to Virgil. All of them questioned his faith. The last one…was addressed to you.” I raise one fine eyebrow as she hands me a white envelope. I don’t open it; I only rest it on the counter. I don’t want to look at it; all of my grief has suddenly turned to anger.

                I go upstairs for a while, to give them some privacy. Once upstairs, I lock myself in my room, and open my closet. I drag out an old chest. I take out a black blanket with a golden alchemy circle, and lay it flat on the ground, then take out a spell book. As I change into a white dress, it flips to a certain page. I look at it, and raise an eyebrow; it is at the CANTO amoena. It is a spell that is particularly comforting to those who have lost. I cross my legs and begin to sing, since some spells are deployed by singing:

Perdidi inuenit, summis infimisque iter

At vero quem me perdidit evadit

Quaero spiritum aliquo modo

Ut utique INAMATUS interficere

                My hair begins to whip around my face as I hover in the air slightly. I am soothed by the disembodied voices that suddenly join my spell. The gold of the alchemy circle begins to glow, and so does my hair and body. I sigh gently as the spell takes full effect. My entire body has turned golden, and my senses, for the moment, are dulled. I feel warmed, loved. My mind refuses to acknowledge that this is temporary.

                I don’t spot it in time. The edge of my blanket seems to have an invisible hand tugging on it. I look down in time to feel my poor butt hit the ground. My blanket is off in the corner of my room as I hear a slight snicker. I raise my eyebrow, and go downstairs, still glowing. I’m not aware of this, and when I walk into the living room, Virgil jumps, while Logan and Piotr stare, and Ororo merely comments,

                “Huh. You use magic, yes?”  I nod, and dispel the effects of the spell, and then notice that Virgil has gone back to talking with Piotr and Ororo. Logan gets up and gestures for me to come with him. I frown, and follow him into the kitchen. As I sit on a chair, he leans against the counter and comments,

                “The others are curious. Do you think he could come to Utopia a day or two?” This was my nightmare, that my son was exposed to the life his father led. It wasn’t so bad, there was purpose to it, but it was risky. I don’t know how to tell Logan ‘no’, but what comes out of my mouth is:

                “Can I tag along?” He stares at me incredulously, and I interject,

                “Oh come on, I’ve never been away from my son for long. And I’m fairly young, don’t call me old!” He takes in a breath but then groans,

                “Fine. Is next weekend good for you? Or do you have a job?” I look at the calendar on the fridge. From Wednesday to Friday, I was working with a peacock who had been acting oddly. I nod,

“Yes, that’s fine.”

All I can think now is,

“What am I getting into? Kurt, this is all your damn fault!”

*.*

              As I stare in the mirror, holding a book, I laugh a little at Zelda. Now that Logan, Ororo and Piotr are gone, and Virgil is preoccupied watching Oprah, she screams several choice words into her pillow. I click my tongue at her, she knew better than to say such things.

              She turns over, and sighs heavily as she drifts off to sleep. I step through the mirror, and although she can’t see me, and can’t hear me, I sit by her side and lean over her protectively, kissing her on her temple.

              I see gleaming red eyes in the shadows and snarl angrily, my golden eyes flashing bloody red for a moment. The eyes blink once and are gone.

              It was what my father had warned me about. The Chaos was returning. And the sooner I guided Zelda and Virgil to the X-Men, the better.

 

 

Here’s Chapter 1! So, we’re getting to see what Zelda’s everyday life is like, and how she truly feels about the X-Men. But why is this story called Everything? Haha, that’s for another time. The first important flashback is coming in the next chapter, so look out for that one!