"three hits to the heart son
and it's poetry in motion
one could send you down the river
three's a strange way to be delivered"
      *Indigo Girls*
      "Three Hits"

"I suppose I should start 25 years ago in Germany." Nightcrawler was unused to speaking about his past and it showed. He kept his eyes glued on the ground as he talked. "From what I know, it was not a terribly hospitable part of the world. Even before the cullings started there had been some kind of attempted mass genocide, but I never learned much about that.

"My mother ran into some trouble with a mob just after she'd given birth to me. She couldn't fight, as weak as she was, and a not long after they started hunting her they brought her to bay at the top of a waterfall of all things. She jumped over the edge rather than abandon me ." A kind of wonder seeped into Kurt's voice, as if he couldn't believe that love was a strong enough motivation for such sacrifice. "How she survived the battering that she received from the hands of the mob and the plunge from the falls, I don't know. But mother never was willing to just lie down and die. And I suppose this is where the history you'd be interested in starts. Do not expect any great detail. I learned all of this second-hand, after all."

"I don't expect a history lesson, Herr Wagner." Jimaine Szardos' voice was utterly calm. "Simply satisfying my curiosity concerning Raven's connection with my mother will be all that's required of this story."

"I won't even guarantee that," Kurt responded. "When my mother awoke, she was lying on an unfamiliar bed in a moving wagon, but her wounds had been cleaned and bandaged. There was no one around, but she couldn't very well make an escape, injured as she was. And she didn't know where I was. So she lay down and remained quiet, in case someone was watching.

"Later, a gypsy woman, your mother, Margali, came in to check on my mother and return her son to her. It was the last thing that Mutti..."

A smile ticked in a corner of Jimaine's mouth at his unconscious use of the word "mommy".

"...had expected, after nearly being killed for showing her true form and bearing a demonic child not a day before. At Margali's insistence, she agreed to stay long enough for me to gain traveling strength and for her own wounds to heal. The gypsy way of life agreed with my mother, apparently. Her stay stretched to a length of almost four years, working as a performer in the circus that Margali traveled with. Apparently, they became close friends. Mother even helped Margali birth her second child."

"That was me!" the young sorceress blurted out. Nightcrawler was silent for a very long time. "Are you OK?" the sorceress finally asked.

"I do not enjoy giving out information about myself," snapped the blue -furred mutant. "I like it even less when I'm being interrupted."

Jimaine almost rolled her eyes. "No, of course you're not surly."

He glared at her, but kept on with his story. "After that, we had to run. It was very quick and she never had much to say about it, but we were on the move constantly from the time I was four. Being chased by Sa ... someone for an imagined crime that he felt my mother had committed against him sometime before my birth..."

"What did she do?"

The part of Kurt that had wanted to tell her about himself closed off again at the question. What had come over him? He descended the pile of rubble and started back towards the other travelers.

"Wait!" His companion scrambled down the heap after him. "I'm sorry if I've upset you..."

"Leave me alone," he growled. "I have no desire to be your entertainment until we get to wherever it is we're going."

"Vas?"

"Drop the den mother act. This is all routine for you. Probably as boring as watching blood dry and I don't want to be something to liven it up for you. I don't trust you, Szardos. And I don't like being kept in the dark."

Jimaine didn't bother getting angry. She had been tired lately and she didn't have the energy to waste. "Does the word 'Avalon' hold any meaning for you?" The instant the words left her mouth, she realized that Pete would very cheerfully wring her neck should he find out.

Kurt froze down to the tip of his tail. "Avalon? You mean you're actually going to try and get to AVALON?" A carefully crafted sneer crept across his face. "You're chasing fairy-tales, you know. Pete Wisdom, the great paranoid hope, is leading the entire herd of you towards a pipedream." His derogatory words and expression came too late. Jimaine was no slouch in reading reactions.

"Now who's acting?" The two faced each other in silence. "I'd tell you more, but not without letting the others in on this."

"Then by all means, let's go tell the others." Kurt hoped that his sudden desperate interest didn't show on his face. Curse it to hell, his mother was still in Avalon and he had to know what these people had to do with it.

"YOU DID WOT?!" Pete knew that raving in Szardos' face was not a good idea- especially with Catseye there, blood still on her muzzle from the night's hunting- but he didn't give a damn. "I don't believe it. I don't bloody-fucking believe it!"

Jimaine stood there, unaffected by his snarling. "He's been following us blindly long enough, Pete. He deserves to know."

"And you've got a big mouth, witch! We don't even know who he's with!"

"I'd appreciate actually being included in this conversation, Herr Wisdom," Nightcrawler spoke up. "And I am with no one but myself."

"So you say." Jimaine threw her hands up in exasperation and turned away. "Stop right there," growled Pete, leveling a hot-knife at her head ..

She turned cautiously. "You wouldn't." A lie. She knew he would if he felt there was reason enough. Association be damned. Though she didn't dare move, Jimaine heard a loud, raspy snarl as Catseye rose to her feet . Meggan moved away from her husband to stand beside the huge purple feline. Kurt moved to Jimaine's side. He might not trust her... but he did like her. A little. Maybe.

"That's going too far, Wisdom." Arron's bass voice actually carried an edge, something almost never heard from the dark, muscular telepath. "Besides, you know you don't really want to do it."

"What I want ain't got shit to do with anythin', Hlessil. There's too much at stake t'let her play favorites with her pet elf. You know that too."

"Pete..." Even the sound of his wife's voice couldn't make Wisdom let his hot-knives die away. Twin blades of light lanced out at Jimaine...

...and burned away identical swatches of cloth away from the corners of sorceress' traveling cloak.

"Fuck and bugger," Pete snarled turning away from the firelight. "Tell 'im. Shout it to 'im. I don't give a Prelate's left ball." He walked away. Meggan went after him, her true emotions hidden behind her eyes, as usual.

Jimaine sat down on the ground a little harder than she would have liked. "Gods..."

'I will not tremble,' she told herself firmly. 'I will not cry. I will not curl up into a shuddering little ball on the ground.'

"That was interesting." remarked Arron, shifting his position ever so slightly. Jimaine smiled shakily.

"Mother-mother Szardos all right?" Catseye chirped, gliding forward and licking Jimaine's cheek with her scratchy, sand-papery tongue. On her other side, Kurt moved away, seemingly unconcerned. She hid her prickle of irritation well. It had been for him that she'd nearly taken two hot- knives, after all.

"I'm fine, Sharon," she murmured, rubbing her cheek against the sleek, soft fur of her friend's head and scratching the cat's thick ruff. "Just a little jumpy." She inhaled deeply, the musky scent of Sharon's feline body calming her shot nerves. She'd have to learn how to handle fighting a little better than that.

"Kurt, I can tell you what you want to know now, if you still want to listen."

"I'm all ears," he commented dryly.

To be continued in part Eight...