THE LOGAN TAPES – Interlude – MOONCHILD DEATHCHILD

To Nicole Wagner, the Deadly Gambit, for her lovely Alisa
LeBeau
And Singingskull is dedicating it to Wolverine6Claws for his
encouragement in rhymelet-composing
 

I didn't know where I was or why I was there. It was no place I
had ever been in before. It didn't look like a place *anyone* had
been in before. It had that pellucid quality of the dawn of the
world that says:
`Here there be dragons and many manners of beasts and
monsters. Men there be not'
It had the crystal clear air of childhood, where everything is
clearly defined and tense, like a goblet ready to shatter.
To tell the truth I scarcely knew who I was.
I had an idea of me as a compact strength and a receiver of
sense impressions.
I got plenty.
The smell… was complicated. Hard to read even for me. It was
young and vibrant and quiet and brooding, in a sense. Like a
chick still inside the egg, all potentiality, but no actuality. It was
the smell of something almost ready to manifest, waiting for the
right moment.
The sound was a slow humming vibration permeating
everything. Life wanting out.
The air tasted like winter the day before it becomes spring.
There was all this blasted immanence around me and I scarcely
knew who I was.
I started to walk, only because standing still had become a
burden, but I didn't know where I was going, or even if there was
a where to go to.
Things were changing as I walked, not in appearance, but in my
perception of them.
Winter became spring and spring summer and still the life I felt
brooding had not broken its shell.
The air became oppressive, the smell miasmatic, the sounds a
vibration that impeded breathing.
I had to stop and nothing had changed around me, only my
perception of it.
I extracted my claws, not afraid, no, but so wary I had to have
them out.
I could do nothing but wait.
Breathless.
And then the white-clad Ororo spoke with the voice of a child, her
white hair riding hard the mighty wind that can change the shape
of the world, chanted:
"Nightborn, Moonborn"
Then Jean the Phoenix spoke, fiery sparkling standard of
womankind:
"Darkborn, Fireborn"
Then Rogue, but she was old but she was young but she was a
hag of darkness:
"Earthborn, Streetborn"
And all three of them started to weave in and out and over and
down and I couldn't stop looking at them fascinated and, now,
afraid.
"Come to me now, Moonchild"
"To my open arms, Wildchild"
"Into my dark womb, Deathchild"
I knew at that word I had to stop them, to stop the chant, because
it was a deathsong that would reeve me from my heart, but I
didn't know whom they talking about.
"Here where all is silver peace"
"Gentle sands and lulling seas"
"Warm and moist, here hide you tears."
But it was my soul, my very life they were ravishing away and I
started yelling
"NO! STOP IT GIRLS! NO MORE! NO MORE!
I had better screamed at the sky for all the attention they gave
me, their dance was implacable and impersonal as fate, their
dance was something outside them, they were there to perform
it, not to guide it.
"Here I'll wash away your pain"
"With my heart-tears' tender rain"
"Come to rest in my domain."
And they disappeared and for the first time a measure of peace
came to me and I thought:
`Dream. This is just a dream. Weather it out if you can't wake up,
Logan.'
And I knew who I was.
Logan, the Wolverine, worried about his kid and dreaming to
sieve the bad thoughts out.
Okay, this I could stand. I was no stranger to dreams and
nightmares. `Dream on, Wolverine, be unafraid.'
A flight of multicoloured butterflies enveloped me, a laughter, a
sweet generous presence and I saw them.
Alisa and Remy were playing in a meadow.
She made butterflies and he touched their wings so they fizzed.
Alisa laughed and made some more.
Suddenly she looked at me and smiled.
I was breathless with wonder, her face was clean, no scars, no
nothing, except her wide happy smile and a loopy hairstyle.
"Logan!" she called and waved.
So I went near them, all dream omens forgotten.
"Logan!" she called clear and bubbly "Come see what we're
doing!"
"Nice butterflies, hon." I said and she smiled like the promise of
summer and gurgled
"I can do froggies too."
Remy laughed and gurgled in her exact tones
"Do froggies, `Lisa, do froggies for Remy!"
I was happy, but also uneasy because his voice was too much
like a parody of hers.
And froggies were suddenly everywhere, red, blue, yellow, green
and purple froggies. And they were laughter were tears were
sleep were excitement were sad.
Alisa's hair was shaved fuzz-short on one side, long and
green-red-blue-yellow on the other.
She was so delicious I wanted to eat her…
Ah.
Well, not exactly, but she was butterflies and froggies and
marzipan and cider and fishes and a lot of other things that
confused me to hell.
I jumped back and she crooned sweet as honey, lethal as
cyanide:
"Logan, dear Logan what is the name of the thing people do
when they want to make some other people safe?"
For the life of me I couldn't answer.
"What *is* that name? It's something quite scrunchy, but I cannot
remember."
"Help?" I rasped "Succour?"
"Maybe" she sung moodily, and then she brightened
"But whatever-the-name-is do it for my brother, Logan, do it for
Remy."
And suddenly I was in a room full of Remy. He was everywhere,
wearing all the paraphernalia of S/M. Corsets, dog-collars,
chains, fishnet stockings… he was so very sexy I thought I was
going to cum right there and then.
Except that there were far too many of him.
Remy said: "He loved me in the slammer, but maybe I dreamed
that."
Remy said: "I felt his man-arse all tight and unwilling open up for
my cock, but that was a dream."
Remy said: "I wish he would perform his Double Helix for me,
but now is not then."
Remy said: "That was just the slammer, where you do things in
the dark to forget solitude and fears."
Remy said: "Dahling, when God put teeth in your mouth, he
ruined a perfectly good asshole!"
Remy said: "*Don't* want me, then, see if I care…"
And I was in a meadow and Remy was running for dear life and
all he had on was his duster and nothing else.
`Wet dream?' I thought, fleetingly, then seeing what was after
him I changed my mind.
Running after my – not mine, unfortunately, never mine it
seemed - Rogue's Cajun was a willowy sexy boy in a vest and
jeans, a blinding smile and two little mouth with pointed teeth
instead of eyes.
Nightmare then.
Gambit was running throwing things at the monster that
exploded in coloured confetti.
"Alisa!" I screamed, I was sure that could only be her doing, and
she was before me, smiling crookedly and singsonging:
"What is the name of the thing people do when they want to
make some other people safe?"
"I don't know, love." I said, meaning it "Would you stop this
please? I really hate to see your brother in danger."
"But he's in no danger here!" she laughed and a shower of
butterflies danced around my head "He'll be in danger there! And
you'll have to do the thing which-name-I-can't-remember-now
that people do when they want to make some other people safe."
Okay, so breathing was not an option, so I had to gasp
"Where? Where, love, where is he in danger?"
I couldn't stop loving him, see? Even in a dream-nightmare.
"There," she pointed with a long and trembling finger "there,
Logan, see?"
And all that was left of her were some aimlessly jumping frogs.
Suddenly there was this girl before me. Her skin was white, not
pale white or pasty white, no, she was paper white, chalk white.
All the rest of her was black.
Black hair, black irises in snow white, black lips, black skimpy
trendy clothes and black boots.
She was young and ancient as time, and though she wore the
Egyptian symbol of eternal life, I knew at once who she was.
She tilted her head to one side, the same gesture that had
splintered my heart a hundred times.
"Remy!" I cried out and she said severely:
"What have you done to my son?"
Bewildered I could only repeat "Remy…"
"Yes," impatiently tapping her foot "Remy, my son. What have you
done to him?"
I hung my head "I could not go, I was detained… I looked for him,
but not enough…"
"Yes. And then?"
"Then I didn't tell him I loved him."
"Yes, and then?"
"When he came to the mansion I never mentioned the slammer."
"And why?"
"Because…" I didn't really know, I never really understood why,
but I had to try because her gaze on me would not let me evade
the issue "Because he was… Because he went after Rogue, he
was always after the women and I thought…"
"He called you monsieur." And she tilted her head again studying
me.
"I thought he didn't want to remember, that he was just making
sure I would not mention it."
She mulled a bit on that and I could see she was really trying to
see my point of view.
"But you have given him back to me with that." She said, finally,
and her voice was sad and compassionate so I could not even
get enraged.
"Lady…" I murmured and she laughed lilting and impersonal
"Not me, Wolverine." And her mouth tilted in a half grin that I
knew only too well, the secret ironic tilt of a witty brain.
"I am just myself. I am the ending of pain. I am the friend to the
lonely. I am.
"Wolverine, I just am."
What could I say to that?
"I don't want him dead, please…"
"And how could you save him?" there is no humour or pity now,
just the essence.
"With my own life" I breathed.
And the three hags were chanting again, flying again, filling
again the air with their inevitability.
"Nightborn, Moonborn"
"Darkborn, Fireborn"
"Earthborn, Streetborn"
"Come to me now, Moonchild"
"To my open arms, Wildchild"
"Into my dark womb, Deathchild"
"Here where all is silver peace"
"Gentle sands and lulling seas"
"Warm and moist, here hide you tears."
"Here I'll wash away your pain"
"With my heart-tears' tender rain"
"Come to rest in my domain."
I couldn't see, couldn't smell, couldn't hear anything but the
deathchant, the moiraichant, the femalechant that would doom
all I held dear in the world to ashes.
And…
I saw him calling his power forth, more and more and more, and
I blanched. `Don't do it kid, don't do it, can't you see they're using
you again? Ain't nobody cares for you but me, kid…' did I say it
aloud or not? Who cared, I started to run to him but he was so far
away… My legs are so short but I pumped pumped pumped my
short legs to get to him in time.
He was there, his tender body his kid body spreadeagled like the
sacrificial victim he is. The evildoers were using him to destroy
the planet, the good guys were using him to save the planet,
`*good* guys? They've set him up to die! What's he to them all? A
tool, a doll to play with and throw away when bored'
"DON'T DO IT, KID!" this time I screamed it good and loud, a
shout fit to raise the dead that nobody heard in the tempest of
crackling roaring energy that was pouring forth from him
"FUCK THE PLANET!" I screamed "FUCK THEM ALL, KID, SAVE
YOURSELF!"
But he did hear because he turned his crimson-hot head in my
direction a bit and smiled at me. I *knew* he was smiling at me
even consumed in the blazing furnace of his power.
`I'll never get there in time but I must try, if my lungs burst I must
try, to die in his flame, if nothing else.'
But I was too late. When I got there he was lying like a rag doll
with its stuffing out, bloody and broken and dying.
'He's saved your fucking planet so rejoice.'
I threw myself by his side and cupped his nape in a shaking
hand. He was not dead yet, I could see that, but he was almost
there.
`Can he hear me? I have to tell him, God knows why I didn't tell
him before, how fucked up can you be, Logan?'
But that was not the time to think on my shortcomings or my
stupid timidity, I had to tell him this and hoped he'd still be able
to hear.
"I wanted to come and pick you up, kid, I had it all ready for you
and me together, but we had problems on that sodding mission
and it took me two weeks to get back and it was too late, you had
gone and I couldn't find you, kid, but I was gonna pick you up…"
His remaining eye fluttered open and he looked at me. He
shocked me into silence and breathed
"… monsieur…"
"I'm here, kid, don't die on me now…"
But I knew he was dying and he knew it just as well.
"I love you kid, always loved you kid."
I could see he was lucid and gathering what strength he had left
to say something so I waited breathless and still not to disturb
him.
"… j'vous aime, monsieur (1)…" it's almost all air, this voice like
spider thread, impalpable and unbearably sweet.
I didn't really have to hear it to know what he was saying, but I
head it nonetheless and it pierced my heart
"… I love you with all of my heart …"
I bent to kiss his lips and kissed his death. He died in my mouth,
I felt his last breath in my mouth, and when I knew he couldn't
feel pain anymore, I could clutch him to my heart and kiss kiss
kiss kiss…
- `My black sun is ashes, my red moon is rust, keep your fucking
planets and your fucking universes, slap your backs and jump
up and down because you've won the day, there's no day to be
won, no light left to see by, the seas are dust and the lands are
cinders and all is burnt to nothing. Keep your fucking planets and
your fucking universes, my universe is dead.'

THE END

TRANSLATION
1 I love you, monsieur (honorific means my lord)