Blazing Embers
Mar. 8th, 2020 06:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenkatyastarTitle: Blazing Embers
Author: Katya Starling
Fandom: X-Men
Characters/Pairing: White Queen, with references to several het couplings
Rating: PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt: FFFC s.93: Bingo - Phoenix
Word Count: 1,988
Date Written: 6 March 2020
Warnings: None
Summary: She's given so much for the dream, and will still give more.
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
"This is it," Kitty Pryde, a mere child to whom Emma had never thought she'd listen a day in her life was saying. The girl prattled on, indicating where the direction from which their enemies were coming. It was the fiery orange light in that direction, however, that truly caught Emma off guard. Pryde was doing her best to lead the current team of X-Men, and experience had finally taught Emma that the children, naive fools that they were, were never going to listen to her. She was there to try to keep them all alive, including Kitty, not to let the girl think she was commanding her. None of that mattered, and she'd grown accustomed to it all.
The sunset, however, was what truly bothered Emma. A multitude of deaths flashed through her mind. The flame-red streaks first reminded her of the Phoenix, a being she'd once feared, until Scott had made it clear that his heart finally belonged to her. It had too, for a short time until the real Jean had returned, proving Emma right after all. He'd never loved the cosmic entity who'd tried to claim them both. It was that pesky redhead to whom all the X-Men had turned at one time or another and for one reason or another, that do-gooder to whom Emma could never truly be compared. Jean was swathed in power and goodness while she was as tainted with blood as her wardrobe was spotless white.
She had feared her return, and for good reason. Jean's return had taken Scott from her as she had always known it would. She had loved him, but she'd always known that his love for her was little more than skin deep. She had been temptation, and power, and wickedness, all things he'd once sought, but in the end what he wanted more than anything else, including more than being Charles' whipping boy or the X-Men's purportedly fearless leader, was to have his Jean back.
She snorted derisively, ignoring the glances that came her way. Let them think what they would. They would anyway. Every one did, rather they were supposedly good, heroic, never-done-wrong-in-their-lives X-Men or not. Every one saw her. Every one saw her, saw the way she dressed, fearfully watched the way she acted with the power she knew she possessed, heard her history, and made up their minds about her before she so much as spoke one word to them. Many of the fools thought she was one of the worst things to ever happen to mutant kind, never understanding, fully knowing, or caring the sacrifices she'd made along the way to try to help their species, to try to help the very kids with whom she was now surrounded.
Taking orders from Pryde was far less than the greatest sacrifices she'd made. Nothing could compare to the pain of losing her first students, the Hellions, because of her own pride, but after that, her pride had taken a fatal nosedive. She had still acted the part everyone expected of her, but she had realized that being that person would never give the kids what they needed and deserved. She would never be able to protect them that way. Indeed, part of the reason she'd lost them was because she'd been unable to let go of her past and had still been trying to gather more power for herself rather than simply protecting the children who'd needed her and trusted with their lives and very souls.
She wasn't as bad as people made her out to be, Emma reflected honestly, but she wasn't as good as she wished she could be, as the leader the mutants needed should be and needed to be if peaceful coexistence with humanity was ever to be achieved. Even Magneto had shed his power and own desires in trying to gain that coexistence, but look at where it had gotten him, Emma thought, gazing out over the shimmering see, alight with all the reds, golds, and yellows of the setting sun. Scott, Jean, and her very own precious Hellions were far from the only connections she'd had and lives she'd seen cast out as the sun was now disappearing. Charles and Erik had died for the very same goals, the same goals for which she, Pryde, and all the others around them were still fighting.
And the Hellions had not been the only children she had lost. Since them, she had buried Everett, Angelo, Mondo . . . The sweet and naive Clarice had never stood a chance because she, Charles, and Erik had all failed to reach the girl in time. More recently, she had buried Paige back in her Kentucky home. The girl had left the X-Men to try to build a life just for her own siblings, but mutant haters had found her brother, ripped every feather from his body, and killed her when she'd tried to intervene. She hadn't called Emma, but Jubilee had when she'd gotten Paige's message. They'd arrived too late, as had happened far too often in Emma's life.
She had been too late to save Paige, too late to save Angelo, Everett, her Hellions . . . She hadn't cared enough to intervene on Erik's life, couldn't have stopped Charles and was as guilty for his murder as Scott, and had had seen no point in trying to keep Scott from sacrificing himself for Jean. She had known, after all, that it would only make the man she had eventually come to love hate her, but she hadn't loved him for the right reasons. Even that romance had started out as a sacrifice.
She'd clung to him in trying to stay with the X-Men, knowing they would not be able to send her away as long as she was bedding their leader. Somewhere along the way paved with deceit, Emma had started to feel true emotions for the man who let so few into his inner core. She'd torn down his walls, started to see the soft, scared boy that was trying so hard for all his friends and family inside, trying so hard even for her when she did not deserve it, and eventually fallen hard. Too hard. She'd allowed herself to be hurt by him, because she hadn't been able to let go and had known all along that it was Jean who he would always love, not her.
She didn't deserve love. Had not Sean Cassidy and Generation X proved that well? The children had never listened to her, never admired her, never respected her as they had him, and although she'd been willing to give up everything for them, even her life, no sacrifice would have ever been great enough in their eyes to make them forget her past and the first set of students she'd failed so miserably. Sean himself had never let her forget that failure or those deaths that had marked her every moment ever since. Oh, he'd spoken well. He'd used the right words to make it sound as though he was on her side and to convince Charles they could work together, but for every good thing he had done, every moment in which he'd acted correctly as her co-headmaster, he'd been waiting to throw her under the bus, as the kids said these days.
She could never be a worthy co-headmaster, or even a worthy X-Man. She could never be worthy to teach the next generation of mutants how to be heroes, or even how to protect themselves. She wasn't really concerned with rather they decided to become X-Men or not. She just wanted them to be able to live to make that decision for themselves. She just wanted them to have a chance for a future. And just like the Phoenix in all the ways it had fallen to ashes and resurrected itself to come back to the X-Men yet again, here she was again, fighting once more to try to guarantee futures for the homo superior children.
EMMA!
Her name blasting through her own mind finally caught her attention and shattered the White Queen's silent reverie. She blinked sharply, acting, as she always did, as though tears were a completely foreign concept to her. She looked down into Pryde's probing, harsh gaze, more than a little surprised that the girl had chosen to open her mind to her after all these years. What? she asked simply, her mental voice as frigid as she felt toward the younger woman she knew didn't like or trust her.
I said I need you --
Yes, yes, Kitty, she retorted haughtily, I am quite aware you need me to cover your --
I need you to get the kids out of here, Frost. If this goes bad, if we can't win, get them out. Guarantee as many of them as you can a future.
Emma stopped, and truly looked into the girl's eyes for the first time in a long time. Kitty was so much younger than her; yet, suddenly, she looked as though she carried the physical and spiritual exhaustion of a woman much older than them both, a warrior much older who was tired of fighting and not only recognized but welcomed the thought that death was coming. This isn't a suicide mission, Pryde, Emma snapped, remembering a much younger girl, a mere slip of a child barely fourteen years in age, who she'd once wanted to protect. We're all coming out of this alive.
And they would, Emma vowed, turning quickly into her diamond form and taking charge. As she led the attack, she thought again of Sean and of the setting sun and how he'd sacrificed his own life for a plane full of strangers. He'd done the heroic thing. He'd always been a hero though he'd hadn't always been much of a man, much of a honest man at least. Unlike Scott, she'd known he loved her. She'd felt the emotions in him and accidentally picked them up off of his mind more than once. She'd even felt him when he'd died, all the way on the other side of the world on his way home from Muir Isle.
He had taken a suicide mission, she reflected sorrowfully. He'd taken a suicide mission, because he'd failed to protect Moira and had felt as grief-stricken, duty bound, and as much a failure as she had when she'd lost her beloved Hellions. He'd sacrificed his life for nearly a hundred strangers who had never known him, but if she sacrificed hers today, it would be for mutants who did know her and did not.
Kitty actually knew her, she realized, her heart surging with joy and relief. She felt like crying again, though for an entirely different reason; thankfully, her diamond form could not shed tears. The girl knew her and knew she'd stop at nothing to protect the children. What she didn't realize was that she was still one of those children. Emma would save the day this time. She'd save these children, and maybe, just maybe, if she was really, truly lucky, when the dust cleared from this battle, there'd be more than two people who realized and recognized she would do anything and everything in her power to save the next generation of mutants.
Maybe she'd actually end up with some students who would listen to her after all. Maybe, at least, they wouldn't fear her or hate her quite so much after all. A woman could still dream, even if she was made of rockhard diamonds, couldn't she? And in the blaze of the setting sun, she knew she could. She could, because others had died for her right to do so. She could, and she would protect the right of all mutants to do so as well to her dying breath, if and when that's what the battle took.
The End
Author: Katya Starling
Fandom: X-Men
Characters/Pairing: White Queen, with references to several het couplings
Rating: PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt: FFFC s.93: Bingo - Phoenix
Word Count: 1,988
Date Written: 6 March 2020
Warnings: None
Summary: She's given so much for the dream, and will still give more.
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
"This is it," Kitty Pryde, a mere child to whom Emma had never thought she'd listen a day in her life was saying. The girl prattled on, indicating where the direction from which their enemies were coming. It was the fiery orange light in that direction, however, that truly caught Emma off guard. Pryde was doing her best to lead the current team of X-Men, and experience had finally taught Emma that the children, naive fools that they were, were never going to listen to her. She was there to try to keep them all alive, including Kitty, not to let the girl think she was commanding her. None of that mattered, and she'd grown accustomed to it all.
The sunset, however, was what truly bothered Emma. A multitude of deaths flashed through her mind. The flame-red streaks first reminded her of the Phoenix, a being she'd once feared, until Scott had made it clear that his heart finally belonged to her. It had too, for a short time until the real Jean had returned, proving Emma right after all. He'd never loved the cosmic entity who'd tried to claim them both. It was that pesky redhead to whom all the X-Men had turned at one time or another and for one reason or another, that do-gooder to whom Emma could never truly be compared. Jean was swathed in power and goodness while she was as tainted with blood as her wardrobe was spotless white.
She had feared her return, and for good reason. Jean's return had taken Scott from her as she had always known it would. She had loved him, but she'd always known that his love for her was little more than skin deep. She had been temptation, and power, and wickedness, all things he'd once sought, but in the end what he wanted more than anything else, including more than being Charles' whipping boy or the X-Men's purportedly fearless leader, was to have his Jean back.
She snorted derisively, ignoring the glances that came her way. Let them think what they would. They would anyway. Every one did, rather they were supposedly good, heroic, never-done-wrong-in-their-lives X-Men or not. Every one saw her. Every one saw her, saw the way she dressed, fearfully watched the way she acted with the power she knew she possessed, heard her history, and made up their minds about her before she so much as spoke one word to them. Many of the fools thought she was one of the worst things to ever happen to mutant kind, never understanding, fully knowing, or caring the sacrifices she'd made along the way to try to help their species, to try to help the very kids with whom she was now surrounded.
Taking orders from Pryde was far less than the greatest sacrifices she'd made. Nothing could compare to the pain of losing her first students, the Hellions, because of her own pride, but after that, her pride had taken a fatal nosedive. She had still acted the part everyone expected of her, but she had realized that being that person would never give the kids what they needed and deserved. She would never be able to protect them that way. Indeed, part of the reason she'd lost them was because she'd been unable to let go of her past and had still been trying to gather more power for herself rather than simply protecting the children who'd needed her and trusted with their lives and very souls.
She wasn't as bad as people made her out to be, Emma reflected honestly, but she wasn't as good as she wished she could be, as the leader the mutants needed should be and needed to be if peaceful coexistence with humanity was ever to be achieved. Even Magneto had shed his power and own desires in trying to gain that coexistence, but look at where it had gotten him, Emma thought, gazing out over the shimmering see, alight with all the reds, golds, and yellows of the setting sun. Scott, Jean, and her very own precious Hellions were far from the only connections she'd had and lives she'd seen cast out as the sun was now disappearing. Charles and Erik had died for the very same goals, the same goals for which she, Pryde, and all the others around them were still fighting.
And the Hellions had not been the only children she had lost. Since them, she had buried Everett, Angelo, Mondo . . . The sweet and naive Clarice had never stood a chance because she, Charles, and Erik had all failed to reach the girl in time. More recently, she had buried Paige back in her Kentucky home. The girl had left the X-Men to try to build a life just for her own siblings, but mutant haters had found her brother, ripped every feather from his body, and killed her when she'd tried to intervene. She hadn't called Emma, but Jubilee had when she'd gotten Paige's message. They'd arrived too late, as had happened far too often in Emma's life.
She had been too late to save Paige, too late to save Angelo, Everett, her Hellions . . . She hadn't cared enough to intervene on Erik's life, couldn't have stopped Charles and was as guilty for his murder as Scott, and had had seen no point in trying to keep Scott from sacrificing himself for Jean. She had known, after all, that it would only make the man she had eventually come to love hate her, but she hadn't loved him for the right reasons. Even that romance had started out as a sacrifice.
She'd clung to him in trying to stay with the X-Men, knowing they would not be able to send her away as long as she was bedding their leader. Somewhere along the way paved with deceit, Emma had started to feel true emotions for the man who let so few into his inner core. She'd torn down his walls, started to see the soft, scared boy that was trying so hard for all his friends and family inside, trying so hard even for her when she did not deserve it, and eventually fallen hard. Too hard. She'd allowed herself to be hurt by him, because she hadn't been able to let go and had known all along that it was Jean who he would always love, not her.
She didn't deserve love. Had not Sean Cassidy and Generation X proved that well? The children had never listened to her, never admired her, never respected her as they had him, and although she'd been willing to give up everything for them, even her life, no sacrifice would have ever been great enough in their eyes to make them forget her past and the first set of students she'd failed so miserably. Sean himself had never let her forget that failure or those deaths that had marked her every moment ever since. Oh, he'd spoken well. He'd used the right words to make it sound as though he was on her side and to convince Charles they could work together, but for every good thing he had done, every moment in which he'd acted correctly as her co-headmaster, he'd been waiting to throw her under the bus, as the kids said these days.
She could never be a worthy co-headmaster, or even a worthy X-Man. She could never be worthy to teach the next generation of mutants how to be heroes, or even how to protect themselves. She wasn't really concerned with rather they decided to become X-Men or not. She just wanted them to be able to live to make that decision for themselves. She just wanted them to have a chance for a future. And just like the Phoenix in all the ways it had fallen to ashes and resurrected itself to come back to the X-Men yet again, here she was again, fighting once more to try to guarantee futures for the homo superior children.
EMMA!
Her name blasting through her own mind finally caught her attention and shattered the White Queen's silent reverie. She blinked sharply, acting, as she always did, as though tears were a completely foreign concept to her. She looked down into Pryde's probing, harsh gaze, more than a little surprised that the girl had chosen to open her mind to her after all these years. What? she asked simply, her mental voice as frigid as she felt toward the younger woman she knew didn't like or trust her.
I said I need you --
Yes, yes, Kitty, she retorted haughtily, I am quite aware you need me to cover your --
I need you to get the kids out of here, Frost. If this goes bad, if we can't win, get them out. Guarantee as many of them as you can a future.
Emma stopped, and truly looked into the girl's eyes for the first time in a long time. Kitty was so much younger than her; yet, suddenly, she looked as though she carried the physical and spiritual exhaustion of a woman much older than them both, a warrior much older who was tired of fighting and not only recognized but welcomed the thought that death was coming. This isn't a suicide mission, Pryde, Emma snapped, remembering a much younger girl, a mere slip of a child barely fourteen years in age, who she'd once wanted to protect. We're all coming out of this alive.
And they would, Emma vowed, turning quickly into her diamond form and taking charge. As she led the attack, she thought again of Sean and of the setting sun and how he'd sacrificed his own life for a plane full of strangers. He'd done the heroic thing. He'd always been a hero though he'd hadn't always been much of a man, much of a honest man at least. Unlike Scott, she'd known he loved her. She'd felt the emotions in him and accidentally picked them up off of his mind more than once. She'd even felt him when he'd died, all the way on the other side of the world on his way home from Muir Isle.
He had taken a suicide mission, she reflected sorrowfully. He'd taken a suicide mission, because he'd failed to protect Moira and had felt as grief-stricken, duty bound, and as much a failure as she had when she'd lost her beloved Hellions. He'd sacrificed his life for nearly a hundred strangers who had never known him, but if she sacrificed hers today, it would be for mutants who did know her and did not.
Kitty actually knew her, she realized, her heart surging with joy and relief. She felt like crying again, though for an entirely different reason; thankfully, her diamond form could not shed tears. The girl knew her and knew she'd stop at nothing to protect the children. What she didn't realize was that she was still one of those children. Emma would save the day this time. She'd save these children, and maybe, just maybe, if she was really, truly lucky, when the dust cleared from this battle, there'd be more than two people who realized and recognized she would do anything and everything in her power to save the next generation of mutants.
Maybe she'd actually end up with some students who would listen to her after all. Maybe, at least, they wouldn't fear her or hate her quite so much after all. A woman could still dream, even if she was made of rockhard diamonds, couldn't she? And in the blaze of the setting sun, she knew she could. She could, because others had died for her right to do so. She could, and she would protect the right of all mutants to do so as well to her dying breath, if and when that's what the battle took.
The End
