Family Ties
folder
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
51
Views:
7,043
Reviews:
30
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
51
Views:
7,043
Reviews:
30
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own X-Men Evolution, or any of the characters from it. I make no money from from the writing of this story.
37
Family Ties Chapter Thirty Seven (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse and Hamster Witch… It’s official. Alan and
Joaquin are jealous. *EG * InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are extra
groovy for archiving. J ProPhile gets an extra muse even though his
email bounces me like a ferret and Jubilee, Tex and Ramsey are just plain
nifty. Readers/Reviewers: Mille grazie and happy pagan dance that you’re
reading this! And to those who
celebrate, L’Shanah Tovah.
“You’re
unnatural!” Her father’s face was a dangerous shade of purple and spittle flew
from his lips as he snarled at her. “You’re
a curse on my house!”
She
whimpered involuntarily. “It’s a
blessing! The priestess said so!”
“They are to
be entombed.” He turned away from his
daughter. “It’s the only proper
punishment for blasphemy.”
She swayed
unsteadily on her feet and tried hard not to vomit from fear. “What…what about me?”
“You’re
banished.”
“What?” She fell to her knees, the world spinning wildly
on it’s axis. “No!”
“You have
an hour to make your farewells. Tacitus
will take you to the edge of Nova Roma and then…” For the first time, his voice
caught in this throat and he could not make himself continue.
“No! It’s the wild!” She crawled towards him, unable to stand, clutching at the hem of
his robes. “I’ll stop being…that
way! I’ll pray and make sacrifice and…and…”
She sobbed to a halt, staring at her fingers, stained brown from dried blood
and her arms, marked with cuts and bits of missing flesh. She had been making blood offerings for a
month but still the problem persisted.
Today was the worst, though. Today, her father found out. She should have, by all rights, been
dead. She fell into the magma river[1]
and survived, something the priestesses said was the sure sign of her
divinity. Something her father said
made her unclean, a curse, a blight… “Father,”
she croaked.
He kicked
her, pushing her onto her back and making her strike her head on the marble
floor. Amara gasped and blinked at the
intense pain. Her father’s face
flickered briefly, became that of a much younger male, someone she did not
quite recognized and smelled of foul alcohol and old sweat. Her father’s face was back then, glowering
at her. “You are not worthy to be of my
blood. You are cast from Nova
Roma. Never…never return!”
Amara
sucked in great gasping breaths, unable to stop the roiling nausea washing through
her body. She curled onto her side and
vomited, unashamed then of her frailty.
Her father left her there in her own sick, her head throbbing and body
shaking. She could not, she found out,
even see her mother before she left.
She could not see her one maidservant Flavia and she could not do much
more than bid farewell to her father’s servants and wait for Tacitus[2],
the mute manservant, to escort her to the thick jungle surrounding the kingdom. Tacitus was a moon-faced young man little
older than Amara but the product of a hard life, the life of a slave. As he
reached for her hand, his face shifted and the palace chamber became the open
air, saturated with sound and smells and pain.
Tacitus frowned at her, no longer his silent self but a scowling,
dark-haired youth with his face close to hers.
“Damn it, she won’t stop moaning and I haven’t even done anything to her
yet!”
“Shut her
up!” another voice hissed and Amara felt something stuffed into her mouth. It tasted foul and made her choke when she
tried to spit it out. The palace formed
around her again but this time, she was alone.
Tacitus had left to get the few provisions her father would allow her
and already she could hear the crowd outside her home chanting prayers against
her and her “deformity.” They wanted,
she knew, a sacrifice. Her flesh for
her sins, for their sins. Surely, they
reasoned, on mon monster born of the foulest gods could command fire as she
could. Amara shuddered and felt dirt in
her hands. It crumbled between her fingers and lodged under her nails. Tacitus came back, bearing a small satchel
and a piece of parchment. The satchel,
she knew, contained a dagger, a vial of water and a small piece of bread. So, she thought, that was it. Her choice was a quick death or a long
lingering one. She looked at her hands
and, instead of bloodstains, she saw mud.
Tacitus disappeared entirely then, as did the pal In Instead, she was on her back, in the dirt,
staring at the evening sky with some stranger hovering over her. “Dude, I think she’s sick…her skin’s hot!”
She closed
her eyes and moaned. The pain in her
head was nearing unbearable. She was
having trouble remembering just where she was, Nova Roma or Mississippi. A particularly grating guitar riff made her
eyes fly wide and she stifled a shriek.
One of her attackers was pulling at her jeans, cursing the stuck zipper,
while the other jittered nervously, obviously the look out. I’m not a princess of Nova Roma. I am disowned. I am responsible for the deaths of twelve innocent women. I am a murderer. She felt a new wash of pain as her father
flickered before her eyes once more. I
am Magma. I am powerful. I am not a victim. Her eyes opened again and her fingers, pressed beneath her in
the soil, worked their way free. “Get
off me,” she said in as even a voice as she could muster.
“Shit!”
“Get off
me!” She gripped the teenager’s
wrists with surprising strength. He
stared at her, wide eyed and obviously panicked. “Too late,” she whispered.
Lance, Todd
and Rogue all heard the scream. It rang
across the field but was lost in the crowd.
They, however, were close to the source. “Dude, sounds like someone’s being skinned alive!” Todd said,
startled.
Rogue stood
on her toes and looked around. “Where
did that come from?”
“Sounds
like from over there,” Lance said, already walking towards a lonely patch of
scrub brush near the beer tent. “Whoa…Fire!”
he yelled, breaking into a run. Flames
were building, spreading across dry plants and grass, munching it’s way towards
the concession tents.
Todd and
Rogue had the same thought, expressed aloud.
“Amara,” they said in unison, running after Lance. The crowds had noticed the fire and the
panic was starting to spread beneath the music. “Lance, wait!” Rogue called, running as fast as she could.
Lance
skidded to a halt at the sight before him.
At first, he thought she was part of the fire, a growing column of
flame, but a subtle movement revealed Amara to his eyes. She was fully
engulfed, very calmly moving towards him, leaving a trail of fire in her
wake. “Amara,” he said, strangled. Then more loudly, “Stop!”
Amara cocked
her head to one side and the flames died out.
She looked, to Lance’s eyes, beaten and tired. “They’re in there,” she said, pointing behind her. Starkly naked, she walked straight past him
and Todd and Rogue, walked through the burgeoning crowd and headed towards her tent.
Lance ran
after her, leaving Todd and Rogue to find just who “they” were. “Amara!
Wait!” He caught her easily as
she was simply walking, unconcerned with her nudity. The crowd, he noticed, did not seem to be paying attention to
anything other than the growing fire and he was oddly grateful. “What’s going on?” he demanded, pulling his
shirt off and, when she would not take it from him, putting it awkwardly on
her, dressing her unprotesting form as he would a child.
Amara
sighed softly and looked up at him with wide, dilated eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For
everything,” she said quietly. “They’ll
be okay, I think. I didn’t kill
them. I wanted to, but I did not. That would make me too much like him, using
death as punishment…”
Lance
looked around desperately for some sort of help and, finding none, pulled her
into her tent. “Amara, for the last time,
what’s going on?”
“We need to
go,” she said, suddenly animated. “We
have to get out of here. Now. Please!”
She sounded
so desperate that he found himself complying even before he thought about
it. He found Warren easily—he was
darting past the tent towards the fire as Lance emerged. “Amara’s flipping out. We have to go. Now.”
Warren
nodded. “I know. I’m not surprised…Where’re Todd and Rogue?”
“Down by
the fire.”
“I’ll get
them. Get her to the car. Take the s. s. Don’t bother packing ‘em right.
Just grab everything. Whatever
you miss, we’ll get. Move!” Warren
barked at him, making him jump.
Lance
motioned for Amara to come out of the tent.
“Let’s go.”
She nodded
once, gulping hard. “I’m sorry,” she
said again, even more softly than before.
Lance nodded absently, surprised when she flung herself at him and began
sobbing.
“Let’s go,”
he said again, leading her towards the car.
What the fuck is going on?
[1] Sort of
playing with Amara’s history here and how she found out about her
mutation. If it bothers you (and you
know who you are…I won’t name nitpicking names), tough. It’s fanfic, not canon.
[2] Means “silent
or mute.”
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse and Hamster Witch… It’s official. Alan and
Joaquin are jealous. *EG * InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are extra
groovy for archiving. J ProPhile gets an extra muse even though his
email bounces me like a ferret and Jubilee, Tex and Ramsey are just plain
nifty. Readers/Reviewers: Mille grazie and happy pagan dance that you’re
reading this! And to those who
celebrate, L’Shanah Tovah.
“You’re
unnatural!” Her father’s face was a dangerous shade of purple and spittle flew
from his lips as he snarled at her. “You’re
a curse on my house!”
She
whimpered involuntarily. “It’s a
blessing! The priestess said so!”
“They are to
be entombed.” He turned away from his
daughter. “It’s the only proper
punishment for blasphemy.”
She swayed
unsteadily on her feet and tried hard not to vomit from fear. “What…what about me?”
“You’re
banished.”
“What?” She fell to her knees, the world spinning wildly
on it’s axis. “No!”
“You have
an hour to make your farewells. Tacitus
will take you to the edge of Nova Roma and then…” For the first time, his voice
caught in this throat and he could not make himself continue.
“No! It’s the wild!” She crawled towards him, unable to stand, clutching at the hem of
his robes. “I’ll stop being…that
way! I’ll pray and make sacrifice and…and…”
She sobbed to a halt, staring at her fingers, stained brown from dried blood
and her arms, marked with cuts and bits of missing flesh. She had been making blood offerings for a
month but still the problem persisted.
Today was the worst, though. Today, her father found out. She should have, by all rights, been
dead. She fell into the magma river[1]
and survived, something the priestesses said was the sure sign of her
divinity. Something her father said
made her unclean, a curse, a blight… “Father,”
she croaked.
He kicked
her, pushing her onto her back and making her strike her head on the marble
floor. Amara gasped and blinked at the
intense pain. Her father’s face
flickered briefly, became that of a much younger male, someone she did not
quite recognized and smelled of foul alcohol and old sweat. Her father’s face was back then, glowering
at her. “You are not worthy to be of my
blood. You are cast from Nova
Roma. Never…never return!”
Amara
sucked in great gasping breaths, unable to stop the roiling nausea washing through
her body. She curled onto her side and
vomited, unashamed then of her frailty.
Her father left her there in her own sick, her head throbbing and body
shaking. She could not, she found out,
even see her mother before she left.
She could not see her one maidservant Flavia and she could not do much
more than bid farewell to her father’s servants and wait for Tacitus[2],
the mute manservant, to escort her to the thick jungle surrounding the kingdom. Tacitus was a moon-faced young man little
older than Amara but the product of a hard life, the life of a slave. As he
reached for her hand, his face shifted and the palace chamber became the open
air, saturated with sound and smells and pain.
Tacitus frowned at her, no longer his silent self but a scowling,
dark-haired youth with his face close to hers.
“Damn it, she won’t stop moaning and I haven’t even done anything to her
yet!”
“Shut her
up!” another voice hissed and Amara felt something stuffed into her mouth. It tasted foul and made her choke when she
tried to spit it out. The palace formed
around her again but this time, she was alone.
Tacitus had left to get the few provisions her father would allow her
and already she could hear the crowd outside her home chanting prayers against
her and her “deformity.” They wanted,
she knew, a sacrifice. Her flesh for
her sins, for their sins. Surely, they
reasoned, on mon monster born of the foulest gods could command fire as she
could. Amara shuddered and felt dirt in
her hands. It crumbled between her fingers and lodged under her nails. Tacitus came back, bearing a small satchel
and a piece of parchment. The satchel,
she knew, contained a dagger, a vial of water and a small piece of bread. So, she thought, that was it. Her choice was a quick death or a long
lingering one. She looked at her hands
and, instead of bloodstains, she saw mud.
Tacitus disappeared entirely then, as did the pal In Instead, she was on her back, in the dirt,
staring at the evening sky with some stranger hovering over her. “Dude, I think she’s sick…her skin’s hot!”
She closed
her eyes and moaned. The pain in her
head was nearing unbearable. She was
having trouble remembering just where she was, Nova Roma or Mississippi. A particularly grating guitar riff made her
eyes fly wide and she stifled a shriek.
One of her attackers was pulling at her jeans, cursing the stuck zipper,
while the other jittered nervously, obviously the look out. I’m not a princess of Nova Roma. I am disowned. I am responsible for the deaths of twelve innocent women. I am a murderer. She felt a new wash of pain as her father
flickered before her eyes once more. I
am Magma. I am powerful. I am not a victim. Her eyes opened again and her fingers, pressed beneath her in
the soil, worked their way free. “Get
off me,” she said in as even a voice as she could muster.
“Shit!”
“Get off
me!” She gripped the teenager’s
wrists with surprising strength. He
stared at her, wide eyed and obviously panicked. “Too late,” she whispered.
Lance, Todd
and Rogue all heard the scream. It rang
across the field but was lost in the crowd.
They, however, were close to the source. “Dude, sounds like someone’s being skinned alive!” Todd said,
startled.
Rogue stood
on her toes and looked around. “Where
did that come from?”
“Sounds
like from over there,” Lance said, already walking towards a lonely patch of
scrub brush near the beer tent. “Whoa…Fire!”
he yelled, breaking into a run. Flames
were building, spreading across dry plants and grass, munching it’s way towards
the concession tents.
Todd and
Rogue had the same thought, expressed aloud.
“Amara,” they said in unison, running after Lance. The crowds had noticed the fire and the
panic was starting to spread beneath the music. “Lance, wait!” Rogue called, running as fast as she could.
Lance
skidded to a halt at the sight before him.
At first, he thought she was part of the fire, a growing column of
flame, but a subtle movement revealed Amara to his eyes. She was fully
engulfed, very calmly moving towards him, leaving a trail of fire in her
wake. “Amara,” he said, strangled. Then more loudly, “Stop!”
Amara cocked
her head to one side and the flames died out.
She looked, to Lance’s eyes, beaten and tired. “They’re in there,” she said, pointing behind her. Starkly naked, she walked straight past him
and Todd and Rogue, walked through the burgeoning crowd and headed towards her tent.
Lance ran
after her, leaving Todd and Rogue to find just who “they” were. “Amara!
Wait!” He caught her easily as
she was simply walking, unconcerned with her nudity. The crowd, he noticed, did not seem to be paying attention to
anything other than the growing fire and he was oddly grateful. “What’s going on?” he demanded, pulling his
shirt off and, when she would not take it from him, putting it awkwardly on
her, dressing her unprotesting form as he would a child.
Amara
sighed softly and looked up at him with wide, dilated eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For
everything,” she said quietly. “They’ll
be okay, I think. I didn’t kill
them. I wanted to, but I did not. That would make me too much like him, using
death as punishment…”
Lance
looked around desperately for some sort of help and, finding none, pulled her
into her tent. “Amara, for the last time,
what’s going on?”
“We need to
go,” she said, suddenly animated. “We
have to get out of here. Now. Please!”
She sounded
so desperate that he found himself complying even before he thought about
it. He found Warren easily—he was
darting past the tent towards the fire as Lance emerged. “Amara’s flipping out. We have to go. Now.”
Warren
nodded. “I know. I’m not surprised…Where’re Todd and Rogue?”
“Down by
the fire.”
“I’ll get
them. Get her to the car. Take the s. s. Don’t bother packing ‘em right.
Just grab everything. Whatever
you miss, we’ll get. Move!” Warren
barked at him, making him jump.
Lance
motioned for Amara to come out of the tent.
“Let’s go.”
She nodded
once, gulping hard. “I’m sorry,” she
said again, even more softly than before.
Lance nodded absently, surprised when she flung herself at him and began
sobbing.
“Let’s go,”
he said again, leading her towards the car.
What the fuck is going on?
[1] Sort of
playing with Amara’s history here and how she found out about her
mutation. If it bothers you (and you
know who you are…I won’t name nitpicking names), tough. It’s fanfic, not canon.
[2] Means “silent
or mute.”