Have you ever looked into the night
and simply wanted? Wanted without knowing what it was you wanted but feeling
the deep ache need for it nestled deep in your gut and high in your heart, lips
framing a voiceless, thoughtless, undefined wish. A desire that you do not even
think, and do not understand.
Humans gave me the name of Uncia,
and I guess that’ll have to do. You people and your naming. I was born as one
of several nameless, mewling blind kittens to my mother at a zoo in Moscow. The
large one, I’m given to know. Understand, comrade? One would think I would get
on better with the oh so Russian man of metal, Piotr Rasputin, who they also
call Colossus, but as I have told them time and time again, he doesn’t smell
right. Why so many names? I do not know. It is merely one of the things with
the X-Men I have been forced to become accustomed to. And how did I get drawn
off into talking about them so quickly, when you do not yet understand what it
is I am? I’m a cat; distracted by new things and ready to pounce once the
distraction is offered to my casually roaming eye.
Again, my name is Uncia, and I was
born to my mother, a snow leopard with no name she would answer to, in the
chilly Russian spring. She is dead now, and my sibs have been packed off and
taken to zoos around the world. But I…I was different. Unique. Not that unique
as I later found out, for there are other super mutated WildBorns out there;
but for sure the only one in Russia. And so far as I know, I am the only one of
Snow Leopard stock. Uncia uncia, or Panthera uncia. My limbs are stronger,
straighter. I walk like a human, tail brushing the ground behind me to help me
keep my balance. When I can, I run four legged, but I do not like to be low to
the ground around humans often. It is submissive, and I will not submit. I can
talk, with a growling hiss to my speech when I must force my tongue and voice
box to mimic these apish gruntings. My hide is mottled and coloured like the
shadows on the snow, thick plushy fur thinning out on my face and absent on the
palms of my hands and feet which are paw-like, with surfaces strong and thick
enough to bear my weight on cold ice. I have curved claws, and fearsome fangs
set in a half way face; half human, half truly what I am. My ears are upswept
and pointed, the fur coming to a small tuft at the tips. I have whiskers, and
large upswept almond eyes of a yellow colour, wild amber iris curled around the
black candle flame of my pupils. I do not have eyelashes; I have the nictating
membranes of the cat I am in truth. I have what is called binocular vision, my
range of sight is much larger then a human’s and my eyes are wider and set
further apart in my face to accomplish this. Indeed, my skeletal system and
muscular groups are much more feline then human; and is that really surprising?
McCoy had a field day with my physical.
I am ten and eight years by human
reckoning; by cat reckoning I am old, ancient even. But I have not yet even
come into my first heat. I have been told, both by my nose and by the words of
these humans that I am what they call ‘beautiful’ in my own way, but they are
not my species. Not really.
We look similar. We can even
communicate, more then any of what they call animal has ever done. But ah…on
the inside, where it counts, we are so very. Very. Different. I can see it in
the eyes of the telepaths as I walk past them in the hallways, scent their fear
from my slightly flared nostrils, hear their little hearts pitter pat pitter
pat in a momentary confusion. Because their eyes say ‘human’, but their minds
spots the predator. And not even a human predator. They’ve already got one of
those on team, man name of Logan. Or Wolverine. He smells…good. More real then
most of these humans around me. Most people can feel it when I come up behind
them. That I’m not human. And then they get a good look at me and want to touch
my fur, see if it’s as soft as they think it would be.
I do not understand why. There are
two men with fur on team. Beast, the good doctor Hank McCoy, and this Kurt
Wagner. Also known as Nightcrawler. Kurt even has a tail, like I do. But they
do not pet them. Indeed, I have watched people run from these two. But people
just want to *touch* me, run their fingers through my fur and feel the tips of
my ear, play with my tail. I do not like it. I find it intensely irritating; if
I wish to be touched, I will be the instigator, and not some hairless monkey.
Stretching once again in the warm
sunlight, she turned over onto her belly, perfectly nude and not bothered by
it. Human social customs were never one of her strongpoints. Her long tail
twitched slightly, tip moving from side to side as she purred softly, kneading
the ground in front of her in an unconscious motion. It was so much warmer
here, then in Russia. Lovely. Sunlight warm on her hide and the restrictive
itching clothes shed thankfully in a heap under a bush half the garden away.
She could hear the soft murmur of voices from an open window above her and she
grinned to herself.
Silly cubs.
Uncia
could smell the pheromones from here, and she hadn’t even done anything. Just
lain in the sun and warmed herself by the light. If they had a fire inside
now…oooh, luxury. Or someone to cuddle with, but Logan wasn’t the snuggling
type and he was about the only one whose smell she could tolerate at close
quarters for a long period of time. She heard a foot fall on the grass, and she
could smell who it was. The weather witch. Her lips twitched back from gleaming
daggers and she snarled soundlessly.
“Uncia.”
“Whitey.”
Uncia listened to the restrained sigh, hearing the heartbeat rev up in anger
and the scent change to reflect the African’s woman ire. Dignified as it was.
The leopard stayed silent, waiting for the human to speak, tail drifting over
the green grass like a cloud over the sky.
“You are
not wearing the clothes that have been provided for you.”
“Flash,
Whitey. I’m not human. I don’t wear clothes; they make my fur itch.” Uncia sat
up, folding herself back onto her feet in a relaxed crouch and rolling her
shoulders. She heard giggles and gasps from above. The scent of teen arousal
got stronger; and it wasn’t purely masculine either.
“While you
are here at the school, you will…” Uncia was off the ground and had bowled
Storm over before the mutant had a chance to react, one set of claws to the
woman’s stomach, one of her clawed feet resting along the inside of one leg and
the other set of hand claws at Storm’s throat.
“I was not
*asked* if I wished to be here. Do not assume that now I will roll over and let
you monkeys pat my tummy. If I choose not to wear clothes, then I will *not*.
And the only way you’ll get them on me is if you force me.” Her head turned
swiftly and she snarled at Logan as he came up, who had unleashed one set of
shining claws in warning. With a bound, Uncia was gone over the hedge and
disappeared into the maze. Shaken, Storm got up.
“Don’t
assume she’s safe, ‘Ro. Ever,” Logan advised, patting the African woman on the
back. He left the bewildered goddess behind as he tracked the cat through the
intricacies of the Xavier Institute Estate. He found her perched on a rock
above a pool, watching with fascinated eyes as silvery bodies swam through the
water below.
“There are
fish, Logan!”
“Why, yes
there are, darlin’,” Logan chuckled, coming up behind her. She was such a child
in some ways…a child with no sense of morals. But cats in general, from
different experiences he’d had that he remembered, didn’t have that firm a
grasp of ethics. Only what profited them, and what did not. And to hell with
anyone or anything that came in between them and what they wanted. “Why did you
do that to Ororo?”
“The
witch?” Sulky little girl voice now; delivered in a soft coughing growl. “They
keep *picking* at me, Logan. They should not be surprised when sometimes I bite
back. I could have killed her,” she said matter of factly, “but I didn’t.”
“I’m very
proud of your restraint.” He hunkered down next to her, getting out a cigar and
lighting it. She wrinkled her nose, but didn’t comment more then that. Though,
on her muzzle-pointed face, the wrinkling was extremely eloquent of her
distaste.
“Restraint?
If I killed her, you monkeys wouldn’t feed me.” Uncia broke off to cough, her
throat hurting. It was the deep chesty cough of a large feline as it prepares
to roar, rather then any dainty little human sound. “Gotta keep my claws
sheathed.”
“Don’t we all?” Logan mused, allowing his to come out with a ringing metallic sound. He studied them in the now beginning to fade light. Uncia was once more focused on the fish below, tail lashing with eagerness. “Whoa, pussy cat, don’t go hunting the ornamental fish.”
“But,
there! And they look so tasty,” she whined. “You monkeys cook all the flavour
outta everything. I like my meals *alive*, if I get a chance to catch them.”
She grumbled as he grabbed her shoulder and forced her to sit back down on her
heels, tail sweeping the ground in frustration. “Even in the zoo, I got to eat
live prey every once in a while. I need that, Logan. Or my next hunting
season’s gonna be on hairless monkeys.”
“I’ll talk
to Chuck,” Logan promised, then shoved clothes at her. “Put these on.” She
snarled at him, but he just smiled. Resentfully, every movement protesting the
indignity, she put on the brief shorts and halter-top that Jean had declared
was the minimum amount of decency.
“Beast
doesn’t have to wear a top,” she reminded him again.
“Beast
usually wears a labcoat and shorts down to his knees,” Logan said in the
familiar rejoinder. Pouting, ears turned down low and tail lifeless, she
followed him back to the mansion. Nothing can pull off a sulk of the grievously
insulted as well as a cat can. When the cat is large, the effect is just
magnified. “Don’t pout.”
“I’m not.”
“Y’are.”
“Not.
Protesting in silence the stupidity of monkeys. Stupid clothes. I mean, I know
why you have to wear clothes. Your bodies are all soft and pink and hairless
like a new born rat.”
“Watch
it.”
“Watch
what? Your ass?”
“You’ve
been talking with Jubilee again, haven’t you?”
“Maybe a
little.” Uncia grinned and then dashed ahead, knowing she was the faster for
the short sprint. Even though he was better tuned to lasting the long distance.
Logan chuckled and just let her run, watching her crouch momentarily to help
her gain height as she leapt for the ledge above the door. Her back legs
scrabbled on stone for a moment, claws leaving gouges before she swung herself
up over the lip of the outcrop and then disappeared into a window.
Uncia was
not overly fond of doors either. Said they were too obvious.
Logan
entered the mansion through the door, running a thick finger idly over one of
the scrapes Uncia had left on previous occasions when she’d bypassed the main
door in favour of the window. He closed the door behind him softly; thinking.
It was too hard, sometimes, to remember that she wasn’t human. Wasn’t a mutant
either. That she was really a leopard that just happened to look a little
human. Well, they had mutants who looked a little animal so it all evened out
in the end. And then she’d say something, express an opinion that was just
something a human would never have expressed.
But it was
hard to dismiss her as a beast. She was too obviously intelligent. What was it
that Chuck had decided? Something about intelligence being the product of a
delayed sexual maturation. Heaven help them all for when she reached her sexual
maturity and went on heat. He’d been looking up some on snow leopards since
they’d found her about a month ago. Things would probably get very loud and
very interesting real quick.
He shook
his head, thinking about the place they’d grabbed her from. He still wasn’t
exactly sure why they had; she wasn’t human. Xavier had been all about the
human mutants, not the animal ones. But Logan guessed that sooner or later, the
curiosity bug had to bite even the seemingly emotionless Xavier. Hell, everyone
knew about the WildBorns, as Uncia called them. ‘Cia, as it had been quickly
shortened by most people in the house. But no one knew why they happened, even
less then why mutant humans happened.
“What do you call yourself?” Xavier
had asked the nude cat girl as she curiously investigated a seat by licking it.
She had made a face, and then spoken in broken, heavily accented English rather
then the Russian they had been using before to communicate.
“I call me nothing. Two leggers call me things; I am just...me.
Nothink more, nothink less. Isn’t that enough? Vhat is this? Why does it smell
like food but taste like that black stuff that come from ze pipes?” She
punctured the seat cover with a flicked out claw, before either Xavier or Jean
could see her intention and stop her before the white padding poured out. She
had hissed in surprise, leaning back and then slashing at it with a handful of
claws. “Vhat is *that*?”
“Padding,” Logan had said succinctly and she had darted a look
at him, then bounded across the cabin of the jet to sniff at him. Square muzzle
nuzzling at his neck and warm breath ghosting over his skin as the whiskers
tickled, her sort of crouching on the arm of his chair, one hand on the back to
steady herself and tail beating a lazy thudthud as she pondered him.
“You smell better then they do,” she decided out loud, before
she coughed, a deep hacking sound that had him staring down a mouth of pointed,
obviously intended for eating meat and killing things teeth. She smelt of old
blood and that sort of wild, heavy scent cats had. But it was somehow soothing
to him. “I do not like these ape noises I must make to talk with you. Zey make
my throat hurt.” She backflipped smoothly, landing on the floor of the jet with
her claws out and teeth bared at Jean who was approaching her. “Nyet,
mindswalker. You don’t read me as well as you zink you do.”
This
continued…distaste for most of the older women on the team struck Logan as
highly amusing. But he guessed, in her mind, she was simply marking territory.
But to what, he wasn’t exactly sure. At least she wasn’t doing it by peeing on
things, which large cats often did. He nodded at Jean as he lit one of his
cigars off. “Jeannie.”
“Logan.”
Her eyes slid away from his to smile
as she saw Scott. Logan shook his head slightly and kept walking as she went
into Cyclop’s arms with a soft laugh and a lover’s secretive whisper. That, was
over. Done. Finished. Damn, he had to stop longing after what he would never
have…