Chapter Text
Erik scanned the room cynically. Too often of late, the news was filled with tales of angry mobs descending on suspected mutants. Too few were able to tell the tale and Erik again cursed Charles’ naïve belief in the so-called human race.
A noise caught his attention and he instinctively flicked his powers at the table, lifting it by the metal screws and flinging aside, revealing a child of no more than 12 cowering underneath it. The girl hid her eyes, a muffled breath revealing the source of the noise that caught his attention.
Movement from the door drew his eye upwards and Erik saw Mystique standing there, her skin tone rippling as she reverted to her natural form from the white man she’d been impersonating. She met his eyes, clearly questioning what he intended and Erik felt a twinge of uncertainty. He did not know if this girl was human or mutant, and in either event, he did not know what to do with her.
Finally, he stepped forward. “What’s your name, girl?”
Terrified, she looked up at him, not moving from her crouched position. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“I have no such intentions,” Erik answered, recalling with some satisfaction the screams of the men he’d sent on their pained way. The fact that the girl’s mother would not be coming to comfort her ever again stirred a rage in him that he never fully managed to quell. The woman had been beautiful beyond description in her defense of her home, and now as Erik recognized, her daughter, and his heart ached at the memory of her crumpled body, blood matting the feathers that she’d so carefully hidden under her clothing.
“Where’s my mom?”
Erik stilled, memories skittering behind his eyes as he watched the girl. “Dead,” he answered simply, but not unkindly.
Tears filled her eyes, but the girl did not break down into tears again. “What happens now?”
“The authorities will take you.” Erik stopped when the girl shook her head violently.
“No. I can’t go with them.”
“Why not?” Mystique demanded, her anger making her voice harsher than she undoubtedly intended and Erik shot her a warning look.
Instead of answering, the girl stood up, her legs straightening and then growing as her entire body elongated.
“Well then,” Erik smiled at her. “I know just the place where a girl like you can live in safety.”
“There is no safety,” the girl answered, tears slipping down her face as she shrank back to her normal size. “Mama said there was no safety for us.”
“True,” Erik sighed. “But there can be freedom to be who you were meant to be. Would you like that?”
The girl shrugged, which, Erik supposed was all the answer that he could expect. “Come with me, child. I will take you somewhere that you will never have to hide who you are.”
Erik turned to leave the farmhouse, sirens in the distance telling him that the police had finally decided to take notice of a threat against alleged “muties.” To his surprise, he felt a hand in his and he looked down to see the girl looking up at him.
After a second’s hesitation, he returned her grasp and led her into the darkness.
