Mirror, Mirror

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… So…very…tired… InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena, and Greywolf are wondermous and loverly for archiving. J ProPhile: I’ll get back to you… Morgan: *glomp * Because. So ner. Readers/Reviewers: Thank you so much for reading/reviewing as you can! I really appreciate it!

Kurt chewed on his lower lip nervously. He did not like the idea of doing this but he did not see how he had much of a choice. “Is it always so damp down here?”

Storm gestured to him for quiet, but Marrow answered anyway. “Yes. It’s a sewer. Were you expecting maybe marble floors and central air?” She shot him a look fraught with vinegary spite. “Or maybe a nice, comfortable mansion with your own bedroom and no slime mold on the door?”

“That,” he muttered, “would be nice.” His keen eyes picked out lumps and outcroppings of questionable origin and he turned sideways to avoid a particularly nasty one as Storm hissed in soft disgust over something squishy under her boot. “There’s no other way in here? You have to go through this tunnel every time you want to get home?” He was barely managing to hold back a gag of nausea at the smell wafting from the walls and floor; he made a mental note to take a tomato sauce bath three times over when he got back to the Institute.[1]

“This is the only way in if we do not want to set off every alarm between here and the city,” Marrow replied, her voice whispering down the concrete passageway. “Now shut up or I will cut your vocal cords to ensure your silence!”

Storm narrowed her eyes and made sure she was firmly between Kurt and Marrow as they eased their way down the narrow path. “We should remain silent until we reach the roundabout,” she murmured. “Just in case.” She raised a brow as Marrow shot her a significantly annoyed look. “This is not our choice,” she added in an even lower tone, barely audible to normal ears. “You are the one who asked for help.”

“I offered a trade,” Marrow hissed. “And this is your end of the bargain.” She looked resolutely forward, her fingers trailing along a metal pipe set flush with the wall. “Now be quiet or I’ll let Thornn have you.”

“Thornn?” Kurt murmured, his senses on edge, trying to find a trace of another being with them but only picking up the sounds and smells of the sewer. “What’s a Thornn?”

“Shhhhh…” Marrow moved with the surefootedness of an experienced hunter, leaving almost no trace of her passing. She tread so lightly that she barely left a footprint in the thick sludge of the storm sewer tunnel.

The only detectible sign of her moving through the tunnel, to Kurt’s eyes, was the sight of her pale back, which he kept a sharp eye on as they turned down yet another side-tunnel, this one even more narrow than the previous. Storm inhaled sharply but did not try to withdraw. Instead, she seemed to brace herself, the concrete walls brushing against her shoulders and marring her white and silver uniform as they moved deeper into the sewer system. “When we get where we’re going,” Kurt whispered softly, “if it’s a big puddle of sewage, I’m going to scream.” He shuddered as something damp dropped onto the back of his neck. “This is vile!”

“This,” Marrow hissed, “is what we are forced to live in. Not all Morlocks live in the main Tunnel. Only the chosen few,” she snarled, stopping in her tracks and turning awkwardly to face them in the claustrophobia-inducing tunnel. “If you cannot keep quiet, I will kill you. Is that understood?” Her bone blade flashed up to eye level, wickedly sharp and curved. “You are not going to weigh on my conscious at all, Kurt Wagner.”

“But you will weigh heavily on mine,” Storm broke in. “And if you touch him, I will see to it that you find new use as a human electrical conductor.” Lightening crackled between her fingers and in her eyes, but Storm’s voice was soft and calm. “Is that understood?”

Marrow sniffed imperiously and resumed her walk through the tunnels, slowing as they reached a t-junction several yards away. “Here,” she said quietly. “Here it begins.”

“Here what begins?” Kurt asked, pressing close to Storm and hoping she did not realize it was because he was nervous.

Wet footsteps, quiet as raindrops, padded through the dark, a flicker of pale skin and dark hair was the only sign that their visitor was not a ghost but a flesh and blood person. “Marrow,” a low female voice came through the wet dimness.

“Callisto, I’ve come for what you owe me,” Marrow said lightly. “And I want it now.”

A/N Sorry it’s short… tomorrow’s will be longer!

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[1] Tomato sauce removes odors like skunk funk, etc. Bathe in it or bathe your pets in it should you get sprayed.