X-Men: Raven's True Blu

Blue! Beautiful blue as far as the eye could see. Blue oceans teaming with life. Blue skies marred only by a handful of white fluff. Although in a few hours, the tropical afternoon heat might well give way to something more ominous. The white clouds replaced by storm clouds, but that was life. Storms always came when you were a mutant.

Raven rested her hand upon her fecund belly. Not this time. Never again. She was through with it all. Men's struggles. Being used as a pawn. Trying to be what others wanted. She had assumed hundreds, no, thousands, of forms in her life. Been who she needed to be to get the job done. Used by everyone in her life. But no more.

This island. This baby was her fresh start. He was all that mattered. She would gladly live out the rest of her days alone on this island to keep him safe. He would be born into a blue world. And when all you knew was blue then you were 'normal.' She would give her all to ensure that her son never heard the word 'mutant.' Never had to hide who he was.

It was a gift no one had ever given her. None of them. Charles had wanted to change her. Make her 'normal.' Eric had told her she was beautiful, but those were just pretty words to get her to do his bidding. He just wanted to use her talents...for his purposes.

She gritted her teeth as another pain nearly doubled her over. It would not be long now. The labor pains that had kept her awake all night would soon give her the one thing she needed most. A real reason, a purpose to live. She breathed through the pain. Welcomed and embraced it.

Just as she had embraced him. That once. She had been nostalgic. The battles had taken their toll upon her soul. She had long since abandoned the façade that Charles had wanted her to be. But one betrayal too many had awoken her to Eric's flaws as well. She had spent decades whoring herself for the man's cause. Being what he wanted her to be when he needed her to be it.

Yet she was dispensable. Like a pawn in his chess game. All right, to be fair, maybe his queen, but one that he would gladly sacrifice for a check mate. Without a moment of regret.

So she had turned to him. In a moment of weakness, she had turned to the one man she should not have. She knew his weakness too. Knew that she would never be good enough. Never be beautiful in his eyes. Especially in his eyes.

He had wanted to be 'normal' his whole life. It had been a bond they once shared. Except that she had outgrown that vain need. He never would. Hell, the man probably hated her most of all, because every time he looked in the mirror he saw a piece of her. A big blue piece of her. It was that piece of her. The 'cure' he had synthesized from her blood that had released the Beast rather than giving him the normality he craved.

Raven screamed into the calm tropical blue morning as she gripped her stomach. This one was stronger than all the others. She thought to make her way to her bed inside but realized it was too late. For a moment she considered the folly of her actions. What if something went wrong? She and her son could both die alone on this island.

But who would she want here now? A doctor? A midwife? She was determined that her son escape the fate that had been her lot in life. She would never have anyone look upon his blue skin with disgust. She would kill anyone that did. And there was enough blood on her hands as it were.

She certainly would not have wanted any of them there. Charles...with his idealism...trying to change her child as he had her. Eric...using the baby as another weapon in his ongoing battle against the humans. Even his own father...nothing more than an experiment as she had been. No, she had made the right choice. The only choice and come what may she would live with her choice. Perhaps the first real one of her life.

She sank to her knees on the front porch with the next pain. She gritted her teeth and focused. Focused upon the only thing that mattered. Her baby. Hers. She focused upon the blue of the horizon. How surprisingly soft and comforting his blue fur had been that night. For a moment it had felt almost right. Like she was safe in his arms. Like she belonged.

His large hands had moved so tenderly over her skins. Blue upon blue had been a heady erotic visual experience in its own right. She had spent hours just running her hands across his body. The strength that he leashed so casually was awe inspiring. And when he moved over her, slipped inside her body...she had never felt anything like it.

She giggled like the school girl she had once been as she remembered a put down she had long ago given Havoc. Big feet. She chuckled...well some myths held a grain of truth that was for sure.

But she knew it was an illusion. A lie. That was why she had slipped from his bed before dawn. Slipped into the darkness and disappeared. Just as she had been doing all her life. This baby was no illusion though.

She had not even realized what was happening inside her body for a long time. The morning sickness. The tiredness. None of it made sense to her. She had been Eric's whore all her adult life. She had long since lost count of the number of men he had pimped her out to. She had been his lover for so long. Once upon a time she had naively longed for a baby. Eric's baby.

But she had given up on that dream. Long ago come to suspect that the same mutation that allowed her body to change, metamorphose, prevented her from doing the most natural thing any woman's body could. Give life. Barren. She had come to accept that her womb (if she even had one) was as barren as her existence.

It was not until she felt him kick that she known. She had gone back to Eric's side. As always. Where else could she go? Who else wanted a naked blue woman hanging around?

She breathed hard as the need to push gripped her body. Soon now. Soon her life would begin. Her new life. Motherhood. Her baby. That was what he was.

She was not as stupid as they thought. The men in her life. Geniuses, all of them. She might not have graduated from Oxford. Or Harvard at fifteen. She might not get her kicks by besting her nemesis at chess. But she had done her homework over the years. And especially once she discovered the truth.

Sperm wars was her theory. Her body had killed all inferior seed. Was immune to it, developed anti-bodies even to other mutants. But it was that piece of her own DNA that Hank had taken into himself with that serum that had prevented her body from killing his sperm as well. That made this baby more hers than his.

Not that she was about to share her theory with them...any of them. No, Raven was gone. Mystique too. Disappeared. Vanished. She and her baby would live their lives alone on this island. Safe. Normal.

She gripped the railing next to her and bore down hard. She screamed. Feared that the end was near. Regretted her decision. Her baby would die here alone. Because she was certain that she was about to expire as she felt the most imaginable pain tear her apart from head to toe. Her whole body shook. Then she heard a pop. Felt him slip from her body. Relief assailed her. The pain was gone.

Silence. The silence stretched out. Was unbroken by a baby's cry. Panic welled up inside of her. Her own silent screams echoed in her mind. Fate could not be that cruel. Her baby. Please not her baby. Nothing could be wrong with her son.

She tried to lift herself. Get to her son. But she was so weak now. So tired. A life time of tired weighed on her shoulders. She fought it all. Fought it for him.

Finally she pulled herself up. She looked down. And screamed.

The baby stared at her. Like some alien being. Her clear blues eyes just looked up into her mother's face. Looked up, studied and waited.

Her eyes were the only thing that was blue about her daughter. Tears formed in Raven's yellow ones. She was perfect. Everything that she had longed for a life time to be. Her little girl was all that and more. Her ivory skin was ruddy from the trials of birth. Her tiny head covered in the littlest blond fuzz.

But it was those blue eyes that took her in. Seemed to see into her very soul. Knew her. Accepted her as she was. Mother. She was simply mother. And that was all that mattered.

Was she disappointed that she was not the tiny blue warrior son that she had thought her baby would be? How could she be? Perhaps her daughter had other gifts. But perhaps not. Perhaps by some fluke of genetic recombination, her child was simply human. Normal. How could she resent her baby for being what she had spent so much of her life desiring?

In that moment she knew. Just knew her daughter's name. She lifted the baby from the cold hard wooden floor. Brought her to her breast. She brushed some of the whitish vernix from her child's pink cheek. She bent and kissed her forehead as she found her nipple and latched on. "Welcome to the world, Blu."