Shani, the newest member of the household, startled awake when Joan of Arc appeared at her bedside.
"Get up. You've got five minutes to get ready before you start training." So saying, she turned and strode toward the Danger Room, her soft leather boots making no sound. Shani grumbled, opening gritty eyes to the digital numbers of her own clock. It mocked her with 5:00 A.M. on its face. She took a deep breath, heaved herself back into the middle of the bed and closed her eyes.
5:05. "Milady, please. You must get up. You have a lot to learn. It is time to begin." Shani opened her eyes again. Joan had reappeared at her bedside.
"Five minutes," she croaked. Joan nodded and left the room again. Shani stared after the woman. After a few seconds, she groaned, rolled over and pulled the pillow over her head.
At 5:10, the pillow was ripped from her hands. "Get up, now, Shani. It's time."
The woman on the bed mumbled her apologies. "It's all right. Five minutes, Shani. I mean it."
Shani lifted her head and glared at her teacher's retreating back while burrowing under the covers. "Five minutes, Shani. I mean it," she mimicked, making a face. "Bitch. I'm not about to get up at the butt-crack of dawn so you can show me how to put a choke hold on somebody."
Joan found her reluctant student still in bed at 5:20. "That's it," she hissed, "I gave her five whole extra minutes!" Tugging the blankets away from her charge, Joan lifted Shani into her arms, carrying her out into the dining room.
Logan glanced up as Joan walked into the room for the sixth time. He sipped his coffee and marveled at the strange things you could come upon when you kept odd hours. When Joan encountered the barrier of the patio doors, she materialized on the other side of them, shifting Shani's weight. Joan kept walking.
A scream drifted over the distance, too faint for anyone but Logan to have heard it. Automatically, he stood, already searching for the source. Shani pulled open the sliding doors and slammed them shut behind her, skidding to a stop at Wolverine's side. She was gasping for breath and soaking wet. "S-she threw me in the lake! The lake!" she hissed. It was as close to an outraged scream as she had ever come in front of a veritable stranger.
Joan materialized in front of her, floating in the air. "I told you to get up half an hour ago."
"So? That's hardly a reason to throw me in the lake!"
"Well, you're up now, are you not?"
"I hate you."
Joan smiled in that superior way that made Shani want to beat the woman to a bloody pulp. "No. You resent me. If you have ever hated anyone, I would think you'd hate Victor Creed."
Her words were snide and all too knowing. "Let's go."
Joan inclined her head, in acquiescence. "As you wish."
"Get up!" Joan bellowed for the fourth time in twenty minutes. "You must
be faster, better, than your opponent! Only show your back to a corpse!"
"Go fuck yourself." Shani snarled.
Steel shrieked against leather. Shani rolled to the side before Joan could draw her blade and cut into her with it. The flat of the broadsword clanged upon the cold metal floor of the inactive Danger Room.
"I will not have you talking to me that way! We have done you a favor! We have given you a life, a purpose. I will not have it," she repeated, standing over Shani with her hands on her hips.
"I don't care what you won't have!" Shani snapped back, pushing herself to her feet. "By your own words, you are here for only as long as I need you to teach me! YOU exist because I allow it!"
"Prove it!" And so it began again. Joan insisted on training her in hand-to-hand combat before introducing any new variables, like weapons. Those would come with time. She shook her head mentally as she avoided Shani's fists. The girl was too slow. She was afraid of herself, of her own potential. She lacked the strength of confidence. She also had a tendency to concentrate on her next move, thus dropping her guard for a dangerous instant. Shani feinted left, avoiding Joan's motions, but throwing herself off balance. Joan's sword appeared in her hands, and she once again slammed the flat of it into Shani's shins.
Shani fell to her hands and knees. "God damn it!"
"Next time, get up. Move faster."
"Oh, why don't you go find a stake and light yourself on fire?"
"Off your ass and on your feet, Shani. Let's go."
"Where's the Queen of Soul?" Bobby joked typically, sitting down for
breakfast.
"'Joan of Arc' took her ta the Danger Room at about 5:30 this mornin'. They been in there ever since," Logan muttered, turning the pages of his hunting magazine.
"Is Shani dead yet?"
"Nah. I don't think so. I heard some real unladylike things comin' from inside when I went past."
"Was she yelling?" Bobby asked, blinking in disbelief.
"Yeah."
"But, isn't that... an emotion, or something?"
"I believe she only shows emotion when she is absolutely sure there will be no retaliation for it," Charles answered from the other end of the table. "No doubt a survival tactic learned from being the wife of Nathaniel Essex. As she becomes familiar with us, she'll no doubt become more talkative."
"I can't wait," Logan mumbled. From what he'd heard this morning, Shani's language was more colorful than a fire in a Tijuana whorehouse.
A low moan reached everyone's ears as Shani limped into the room, her hands over her eyes. She was still wearing the short, black silk number that had taken a dunk in the lake. Joan was right behind her, running through a progress report.
"Next time, keep your hands up and protect your face." Shani sported a nick on her cheek from a wayward fingernail. "And regain your balance after every move and your shins will be fine." They weren't fine at the moment. They were several interesting shades of black and blue, at the moment. "Remember: the secret to overtaking your adversary is making sure they don't see you coming."
Shani snarled viscously before she hauled off and slammed her fist into Joan's face. Cartilage snapped, and blood began to ooze. "There, you schizophrenic bitch! Did ya see that coming?!"
Joan blinked up at Shani, one hand cradling her broken nose. She stared at the redness spreading over her hand for several moments. "I'm bleeding."
"Yeah." Shani grinned.
She spun around and started for her room, making it halfway across the dining room before Circe's voice stopped her. "What the hell have you done?!"
Shani hissed and turned to face them. Circe and Cleopatra were kneeling beside Joan's sprawled form. Catching her expression, Cleo and Circe both backed up against the wall, involuntarily, of course. "Hail Isis!" Cleo swore, "Did you crawl out of the wrong side of the coffin this morning?"
"Noooo," Shani drawled with a piercing glare at Joan, "But I did have to
crawl out of the lake."
Charles glanced up from the file that now contained everything known about
the young Shani O'Rhian. She sat in the chair across his desk, her hands
folded on her lap, once again staring at nothing in particular. She bore
little resemblance to the enraged woman capable of this morning's outburst.
Clothed in jeans and a sweatshirt borrowed from Jean, she had once again
withdrawn into herself. She had been in the middle of another curse earlier
that morning when she had realized that the X-men were in the room with
her, staring at her with various expressions of shock, disapproval, wry
humor and total disinterest (from Logan). Her teeth had clicked shut and
she had said no more, only nodding her head at Hank's request that she come
to the lab after breakfast.
It had been heartbreaking to see her fear of the lab, but she sat and obeyed Beast's gentle commands, as she had been taught.
She was in excellent physical shape, the bumps and bruises from her recent workout not withstanding. The DNA test results were extraordinary. Each chromosome of her body seemed to contain at least one anomaly. Beast wasn't sure if these were each different X-factors and represented separate mutant abilities, or something entirely different. Either way, he'd never seen the like. he'd taken another blood sample before sending her into the study. He seemed fascinated with it and was currently ensconced in the lab, still playing with it.
The rest was up to Charles. He took a deep breath, closing the file and folding his hands on top of it before looking at her. She was staring over his left shoulder, out the window, as though entranced. He glanced out the window and saw nothing unusual. "What do you see, Shani?" He asked, curious.
"A butterfly."
"Where?" He saw nothing.
"There." she jerked her chin in its direction, "About three hundred yards out, on the stalk of one the daffodils growing in the woods."
Charles squinted. "Oh." He didn't see it. Picking up a pen, he made another notation on her file. In his excitement over her DNA, Hank must have forgotten to test her eyesight. He took another calming breath and began again. "Shani, I would like your permission to look into your mind."
Her gaze focused with unnerving speed, the pupils shrinking into cat-like slits. "Why?" She was defensive, as though this had happened before.
"Because I wish to see what powers you have, and what is keeping you from controlling them. Please, Shani. I wouldn't ask you to do this if it weren't absolutely necessary. I need to know what you are capable of before I know which course to take. You must gain control of yourself, and quickly. Each day we wait increases the possibility that you could lose control and hurt yourself or others. It won't hurt, Shani, I promise."
She had heard that before, too. But she felt herself nod, almost involuntarily. The Professor smiled reassuringly, closed his eyes and concentrated. Shani followed his lead and closed her eyes.
Charles gasped and opened his eyes to the dark, empty space that was Shani's mind. He was confused. He had felt such energy from her, such vitality. There was more. There had to be more. Charles walked on. Here, only silence thrived. It was broken by the occasional gust of chill wind or a despairing scream. Nathaniel had taught her well, emptying her mind of everything that he disapproved of. So only the darkness remained.
A door loomed in the distance. Charles chased after it, a futile gesture. The faster he ran, the further away it got. Finally, he used his mind to hold it in place. Cautiously, he opened the door.
The moon was an ivory cameo against the shimmering indigo silk of the sky. Stars glittered, vibrant and untouchable, in the heavens. The landscape was verdant and gently sloping toward a house in the distance. It shone silver in the moonlight. He drew closer, the glare of the light blinding in the dimness. Standing at the door of the house, his mouth fell open; he was shocked at his discovery.
It was a house of glass. A house of mirrors. Reaching out a trembling hand, he ran his fingers over the single word etched on the door: Essex. The glass stung; he pulled back his hand, vaguely surprised to see blood running from his fingertips. Finally, he tried the doorknob. As he had suspected, it was locked. "Shani must throw the first stone," he whispered. The words echoed around him.
Outside the confines of her mind, Charles sensed Shani wincing. The landscape dissolved around him, pushing him back into the dark nothingness of the periphery. He pulled back, surprised again. Shani had the power to force him away from her mind. He concentrated again. Shani had relaxed once more, and made no protest when he continued on. The next door concealed a nightmare too terrible to describe.
They were her memories. Even the blinding heat and light of birth singed the skin. There was passion and love, too violent not to burn out in a vicious death. Her parents. There was hatred and desolation, her husband. There was fear and desperation, her rapist. Now there was only a tiny, pitiful flame of hope, the flame that burns eternal in all mortals. He smiled. At least she still had that.
Charles left that room and was about to leave her mind altogether when he spotted another door. This one was small and plain, with words he could not read written on the wooden surface. He touched the handle. Heat suffused his body. The rest of her mind seemed to be cool and glossy, with none of the mess and jumbled emotion of other minds he had touched. He nudged the door open with his foot.
He was drawn inside before he could stop himself. This place was pure emotion. Violent, savage lust washed over his frail body in a lush wave. The thick, drizzled heaviness of seduction settled over him like a velvet cloak. He could almost taste the liquid of astringent, wild desire on his lips like the salt spray of an ocean breeze. His fingertips tingled from the sensation of sliding over hot, smooth skin. His abdominal muscles clenched, anticipating a virulent release, one with razor-sharp edges that could shatter a man. His hands flexed, closing over a form that wasn't there. This emotion was undiluted, unfettered, and utterly dangerous.
He realized what was going on in the same instant he knew he had to get out of there before the inevitable happened. Apparently, Shani considered her memories of Remy too precious to be put in with all the others. She had placed them here and refined them until each sensation was flawless and piquant and each thought was heated and passionate.
There was no way he was going to go through the ordeal of having intercourse with Gambit. That, as far as he was concerned, was entirely unnecessary.
Pulling himself free of such thick, honeyed sex, he fought his way from the room, slamming the door behind him.
He opened his eyes, breathing harshly. Shani smiled innocently at him, fully aware of what had almost happened. He flushed. Clearing his throat forcefully, he said, "Well. I think I've seen enough for today."
"I'll bet." She swallowed back her laughter.
"Ah. Yes. Moving right along, Shani, I don't know exactly what to expect from you."
She shrugged. "What you see is what you get."
"Looking at your mind, you seem completely shut down, inactive. But just yesterday, you were able to use pure, psionic energy to attract Gambit's soul and later to put it back. Do you know how you did that?"
She shook her head. "No. I was just kissing Gambit good-bye, and I felt my head go light and my skin tighten until... I... don't know. It just happened." She shook her head, agitated.
"It's all right. You don't have to push yourself." He smiled at her. "But I'd like to see you daily until I can determine how to help you. I'll have to go into your mind," he warned her.
"That's all right. Can I go now?"
He motioned toward the door, watching her as she left. When the door was
safely shut, he whispered, "She who dwells in a house of mirrors will fail
if she can't face her reflection."
Shani suffered through the early afternoon under Cleopatra's tutelage. The
Egyptian queen spoke of legends and fairy tales, something that held no
interest to Shani. Both practicality and pessimism had been beaten into
her, after five long years with her husband. She was physically incapable
of taking a flight of fancy; believing in unicorns and truth winning over
evil and happy endings just wasn't in her anymore. Finally, after several
grueling hours of lecturing, Cleo hustled her off to Circe.
Circe led her into the woods. They stood beside the lake, observing the gentle lapping of the water against the shore. She soon destroyed the quiet mid-afternoon peace by talking of the Elements, the harmony, the purpose of nature ad nauseam. Shani began to fall asleep, still standing. Circe, although annoyed, said nothing about it. "I understand that you are tired. You may go now, if you wish."
Shani grinned and was gone, unaware of the shadows that played in her wake.
"Hey, Cyke! Have you seen my--"
"Shhhhh! Pipe down, Warren, Shani's sleeping."
"Really?" Angel's blond head appeared in the doorway. He scrutinized Shani, sleeping on the Rec Room's couch, before whispering, "Scott, have you seen my wallet?"
"It's on the kitchen counter, I think." Scott threw the blanket he was carrying over her body. Briefly, he thought about her resemblance to his wife. They had the same height, build, and hair color. They could have passed for sisters. Shani had committed adultery with Gambit; had Jean done so with L--?
Her eyes opened and she grabbed a fistful of his shirt, pulling his face closer to hers. "Scott, I'm going to tell you this once, for your own sake. Drop it. Either love her or leave her, but shut up about it!" She continued acidly, "Confront her and divorce her and get it over with! Your soul is screaming for it!"
Fear plunged an icy blade into his heart. He stumbled off alone, shaken by
her words... Shani huffed, turned over and went back to sleep, banishing his
stricken face from her mind.
The veil of confusion parted, and she
was again a prisoner of her memories.
Shani turned from the window, away from the boring New York skyline. It was dirty and harsh, with a dimming haze choking the craggy, jagged buildings thrust insolently into the sky. "Mom? I hate it here. I wanna go home."
Shani's mother, a tall brunette, finished plaiting her long hair and closed the clasp of her barrette with a snap. "Now, acushla," she sighed, using the Gaelic endearment she'd learned from her husband, "Chin up. New York isn't all bad."
"But, Mo-om," she whined, "it's boring. Dad never lets me go out! I can't do anything in this damn city!"
"Shani! Your father worries about you. This isn't like Ireland. You just can't run around the crofts until you hit the cliffs of Dover. It's dangerous here. This is a big city, not a quiet little village! You could be mugged or kidnaped or--"
"Oh, I know," Shani threw and arm across her forehead and collapsed dramatically on the divan, "I could suffer a fate worse than death!" She made a face and rolled her eyes. "Sitting in this room all day is a fate worse than death!"
Jahmin sighed. "There are worse things, honey," she murmured.
Jahmin was right. A week later, Shani's father was dead, and she was nursing a violent hatred for her mother.
They faced each other across the same suite at the Waldorf-Astoria. This time, the curtains were drawn and the air in the room was stale with the thick, frightening scent of spent grief and the cloying smell of a dozen bouquets, all with cards oozing with condolences.
"You bitch! I hate you! You knew my father was dying and you did nothing! Nothing! How could you?! I hate you! I hate you!" Shani was screaming, tears streaking her mascara. The veil of her hat stuck wetly to her face. She ripped it away, stripping off the black gloves and hurling them at her mother. Jahmin said nothing, she merely stood, unshed tears trembling within the violet orbs of her eyes.
Shani was fast losing the battle with herself. Her heart thumped dully against her ribs, her nails dug into her palms, drawing blood. Her legs suddenly refused to support her, and she fell to the hardwood floor with a thud.
For a moment, nothing moved. Then Jahmin gathered her daughter into her arms and rocked her back and forth, the tears falling on Shani's hair in a gentle rain. She spoke soft, melodious words, weaving a spell to ease her daughter's pain. They both trembled and finally the dam broke. Shani cried.
But more than her anguish was released. With it came a strange sensation. She was floating, lighter than air. She looked down at herself, seeing a strange luminescence in her skin. Her mother screamed and shrank away. "Mom?" She called out in a tiny, frightened voice. Her mother whimpered, scrambling away, even as Shani reached for her.
"Mom?" Shani reached out and touched her mother's arm, a mere brush of the fingertips.
Searing heat tore through them both. Shani's muscles no longer responded to her commands, and she couldn't pull away.
Then, there was only light, and pain, and fear for them both. Shani watched her mother dissolve before her eyes. She filled with the same bright glow as Shani, but her body could not contain its brilliance. The light splintered from her body in sharp, diamond-hard rays that burst from her skin. Jahmin shattered into nothingness.
Shani sat still, unblinking, unbreathing, waiting for her mother to come back. She didn't.
The light in the room was dim and blue with darkness when he appeared. Shani sat on the bed, unblinking, her arm outstretched as if reaching for a hand she could never touch.
"Shani?" His voice was soft, laced with a British undertone. She did not move. He motioned the men with him out, with a curt nod of his head.
He sat down on the bed and pulled her wooden body to him. She was powerful, he could almost feel the force of it thrumming beneath her skin. It took several minutes, but she relaxed. She sobbed again, brokenly, shaking so hard it was a wonder she didn't come apart in his hands. "What have I done?" she whispered, over and over.
He slid one hand along her jaw and under her chin, forcing her to lift her face to his. God, she was beautiful. "You did nothing, do you understand? Nothing."
She shivered and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist. This was the man her father had wanted her to marry. It had been his last wish. She risked another glance at his face. He was so... so... She'd never seen anyone like him.
"Shani?"
"Yes, Nathaniel?" The words forced themselves past her lips.
"Marry me."
Upstairs in the mansion, Jean startled awake from her nap. Her face was wet
with tears.
Downstairs, Shani sucked in air like a drowned woman and jerked awake, tumbling from the couch as she did so. She felt sick and tired and bruised and... trapped. Stumbling blindly to her feet, falling heavily to her knees once, she lurched toward the nearest exit.
Jean stopped, an outcry caught in her throat. But Shani heard it, and
turned before leaving the room. In one instant, they shared all the pain
the human heart can bear. Shani bolted from the room as though the hounds
of Hell were snapping at her heels, leaving Jean alone.
Nathaniel Essex lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling. He lay in silent
repose, thinking without logic and staring without purpose. His wife's
memory haunted him. Her room was pure and white, empty, but still she lingered. Sometimes he
found himself in those rooms for no reason, at odd hours of the day and night.
Sometimes he thought he could smell the faintest wisp of the lavender water
she splashed defiantly on herself. But it was too faint to be real, of
course.
She was gone from him, just as Rebecca was gone.
And, in an odd sort of way, he had loved them both the same.
Too late.