"We're here to be different; to show the world they don't have to fear us with loaded guns."
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Ximena Dominguez has lived one too many lives. The ending of the last wasn't one she liked to repeat. From a young age her mutant abi...
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THE WIND BLEW ITS REPETITIVE CARESSES. It was comforting in the moment Ximena needed it most. It twirled the fallen leaves in a wistful late autumn dance. It rustled the dark chocolate strands of her hair against her cheek like a maternal kiss. But what Ximena knew is that the wind wasn't just a natural act of God.
It was a hollow feeling. A lonely sign of the times. A realization of the changing seasons. The old was passing away and the new was just arriving. It had been a week since Stryker. A week since Jean... and Ximena wasn't ready for new. She was terrified, but it seemed she was always terrified these days.
Scared of the unpredictable, of all perishable things. One of those just so happened to be life itself.
Ximena knew eventually that she would be alone one day. She never aged anymore; it was inevitable. However, she always hoped and prayed her friends wouldn't be taken from her in an untimely way, before their rightful time.
She didn't care what anyone had to say, Jean sacrificing herself wasn't her rightful time. Her gut knew it, whether she was in denial or simply headstrong - she did not fully comprehend. Ximena just knew her chest hurt like a cavity had been drilled out and left to drain.
The Illusionist woman was adorned in black. A color she didn't typically wear often, but one she would wear as she honored Jean's life. Ximena stood on the marsh of the graveyard with the rest of her fellow mutants who knew and loved Jean just as she did.
The sky wasn't crying for her fallen friend, it too had betrayed Ximena. The clouds were bright with the sun's rays. The trees were various shades of burning red and vibrant orange, flying around without hurry. The lake which stretched on from afar rippled with noisy ducks, tadpoles and other prevailing things. A perfect late autumn day. It seemed as if everything insisted on moving on in spite of what Ximena was feeling inside.
She was a stagnant rock in a babbling brook, collecting algae, stray vines and tripping up imaginative wanderers with its stubbornness. Ximena's mood was unwanted, yet necessary.
Logan stood beside Ximena in an aggressive silence. Lips pulled tight in a seemingly permanent grimace. His black shirt and dark washed jeans, with its rips and immovable stains, were all he really had that made sense for today. It was probably the first time he truly cared about what he was wearing. It was probably the one aspect of this day that he could control.
He wasn't an emotionally available person, but for Ximena, knowing she'd need him most on this day and all days after, motivated him to try. Even if she was irritable and didn't necessarily want his company, he would stand by her side. He promised her he was serious, and this was him putting his words to action.
