A THEORY OF FLIGHT
by RogueStar

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For JB's baby-bird, Loiosh. :)

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I am moved by fancies that are curled
around these images and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
infinitely suffering thing.

Preludes, IV - T.S. Eliot

Birds were beautiful, weren't they? Sleek, smooth-winged creatures with white feathers and sweet voices. Not awkward, indignant bundles of grey fluff that squawked their protest. After all, Morlock legend spoke of great, white owls who carried dreams in their beaks to good children; who sailed noiselessly through the air on wings of wind. This bird could not carry dreams in its gaping maw without swallowing them, could it? Suspiciously, Marrow regarded the tiny creature that she held cupped in the palm of her hand. Its wings were stunted - sprouting tiny, sharp quills - and its face was only beak and too-large eyes.

"What does she have down there?" she heard Storm ask from the top of the staircase.

"A baby bird," Wolverine replied, a sneer in his voice, "Probably going to eat it . . . . Little freak lives for blood."

Her face grim and still, Marrow removed a shoebox from a corner of the basement. Her Treasure Chest. Tipping the contents out, she rummaged through the pile of plastic beads and magazine clippings. A sharp knife gleamed wickedly, wrapped in some, shimmering cloth, and she grinned in triumph.

Her eyes went back to the frail, cheeping hatchling in her left hand. Careful not to tear the thin silk, she unwrapped the handkerchief from around the blade, and put it to one side.

"Ain't that a bit unfair, Logan?" Cannonball sounded angry, and Marrow paused. He was so clean, so polite, so fair. So slow to judge. So quick to forgive.

"Not in the least, kid. I've faced her, remember? Her type only knows killing."

Tears pricked her eyes, shining like tempered steel, as she wrapped the bird in the handkerchief and placed him in the shoebox. Logan was wrong - 'her type', the Morlocks, had been patient, despite their suffering, and gentle, despite all that had been done to them. She had failed them; stained their legacy of peace with blood.

She looked down at the bird, remembering finding it cheeping and helpless on the ground beneath a tree. Hearing the laughter of boys as they ran away, tossing the empty nest behind them. A few feathers had still clung to the straw, white as the misty mare's tails that had drifted in the sky. She had been angry, and had considered chasing the boys, pinning them down and dissecting them until she found some goodness in a loop of intestine or chamber of a heart. The bird had squawked, however, and she had turned to it, sensing that it was there that she was needed.

"You need a name," she told the nestling, as it chirruped up at her, "I'll call you Cloud, because, no matter how close to the sun you go, you'll always have the memory of darkness inside you. Like me."

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Disclaimer: All characters belong solely to Marvel and are not used to make me a profit.The tiny bird belongs to Marrow. I belong to too many mailinglists. :) However, I'm never too busy to hear your comments at brucepat@iafrica.com. This story fits into two challenges - Em's allegory challenge, and JB's Warm and Fuzzy Challenge.

Back to the living room

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