7. Public + messages to David & Iris

[exnihilo]

[Private to David 8]

I wasn't any different there. That I could tell.



[Public, voice]

How many people have you been? How many people have you pretended to be?

[She's not sure where exactly the distinction is between these things.]

You may estimate.



[Private to Iris]

I'd like to be allowed in the labs. I've been researching hydroponics.

Comments

[exnihilo]

Who were the three you wanted to say?

[fireincarnate]

...Marvel Girl. Phoenix. Dark Phoenix.

I started using the first one when I joined the X-Men. We're - not exactly super heroes, really, more like...peace keepers. [A slight, wry smirk.] Or we try, anyway.

[exnihilo]

Who were you before the first?

[fireincarnate]

[No one.

The thought startles her. That's not true, not really - she was a daughter, a sister, a friend. She liked sports and fruit cups and climbing trees, she was good at biology and bad at math.

But all of that seems so small. Inconsequential. She didn't matter, when she was just Jean Grey. Jean Grey didn't save Annie, not really; Marvel Girl made a deal.]

I was...I was just a girl.

[exnihilo]

I think that's an okay person to be.

[Mira was a girl, once. A girl who loved swimming, who didn't feel lonely even though she was alone. She thinks so, anyway.]

[fireincarnate]

It is. [She knows that. She knows that, right?] I guess it just - didn't feel like enough.