Morgan & Kurt | Saturday Morning

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Continuing her spree of not liking anyone, Morgan meets Kurt!

In her short time in residence Morgan had decided her favorite time was after she'd woken but before the rest of the mansion had. It let her swim in peace every morning after she woke and it let her relish in the rarely experienced feeling of simply not working. She may have bordered slightly on workaholic if she was honest, but what else was she supposed to do with her time? She'd asked to be put to work while she was at Xavier's, not for money but to feel like she wasn't taking advantage of the place. Still, no matter how much manual labor she put in during any given day it didn't feel like work to her. Most of the time it made her restless but at this hour of the morning it simply calmed her.

That morning she'd picked her way to the library to investigate the inhabitants of its shelves. She could have sworn she'd hit the jackpot when she came across a section with psychology books, half of which at least had a chapter or two dealing specifically with mutants. Now here was something helpful that she'd never found before. When she'd located a book devoted to the psychology of the "genetically advanced" she curled up in a chair with it, intent on combing through it enough times to have the words memorized.

Kurt had always enjoyed the quiet of the mansion in the early mornings too. Usually, he went out to the grounds, but this morning he left Triscuit in his basket and headed for the library, intending to do a little more study for his equivalency. He smiled at the girl as he spotted her.

"Good morning. Morgan, yes?"

The voice drew red eyes up slowly, reluctant to leave the words on the page behind. When they found glowing yellow eyes set in a deep blue face, though, that reluctance passed and was replaced by curiosity and perhaps a little fascination. She'd never actually met anyone else who was blue so when it had been mentioned there was already someone blue around she'd been vaguely intrigued.

She smiled up at the stranger, a smile that spread across her lips fully and was more a trigger of politeness than sincerity though the lack of sincerity would be difficult to detect. "Yes, I'm Morgan. And you must be my similarly hued counterpart I'd heard of in passing. Unless there's a third blue person walking around as well.

"There is one purple person", he told her, smile widening, "but yes, we are the only blue people. My name is Kurt Sefton."

"Yeah, I met the purple one. She's...tactless." Tactless was Morgan's answer to being tactful in her description of Clarice. An expression of vague annoyance had crossed her face at the memory of the girl but was quickly replaced with the same broad smile. "Nice to meet you, Kurt. It's like having a non-genetic twin," she joked in reference to their hue. Her eyes narrowed into a squint due to the library not being fully lit. She hadn't seen the point in many lights since she was the only one there and the sun would be up soon enough anyway. "Are you...furry?"

Kurt hadn't even noticed the dim light. He could see in darker settings than this, but he sidestepped to turn the lights on when he saw Morgan squint. "Indeed I am, and I also have a tail." It flickered out from behind his back in evidence. "It is nice to meet you too, Morgan."

Her head cocked to the side as she peered at the tail. Alright, so she hadn't been expecting that one. "Does it actually help with balance?" Between Kurt and Kyle she was going to start mentally associating everyone with different animals. That could be bad if she ever let that fact leave her lips.

"Actually, yes." He smiled. "It was a great help when I was learning to walk, my brother tells me. And of course, with my acrobatics now."

"Acrobatics? I knew I'd come here skill deprived. Inventing machines, acrobatics. I'm going to have to train to become a magician so I can feel special," she told him with a sage nod and feigned disappointment.

Kurt laughed. "I grew up in a circus", he explained. "Everyone did something, and it was obvious for me with my physical differences. I am sure you have many special skills of your own."

Instantly she gave him a wicked grin. "I suppose you could call them skills, yes." She left it vague so his mind could make of the statement what it would. Though she could have started to list off "skills" that had nothing to do with weapons training she'd received from her brothers in mercenary arms.

That got a curious - and just a little intrigued - head tilt. "There are few here who have none, one way or another. What would you say are yours?"

The laugh that followed his response would have been better suited to the other end of a telephone line after dialing a phone sex number than to a library where a girl in her twenties was curled up with a book. Her gaze changed just like flipping a switch turning quickly into the sort of look you found on your lover's face before they backed you against a wall and mapped out the quickest way to get your clothes off. "Well, I'm very adaptable...and I'm very good at giving people what they want."

It didn't faze him quite as much as it would have before Wanda, but he still went very slightly wide-eyed and faintly purple. "That... sounds very interesting."

The physical reaction was priceless and caused Morgan to bite her lip. The expression she wore was full of coquettish innocence. It was too well practiced to not be devastatingly convincing. "If I wasn't good at what I do then they'd never come back, would they?"

Kurt blinked at her. "And I am assuming they do come back for... for whatever it is you do?"

Her lip had been trapped once more by her teeth so she just nodded slowly. Morgan unfolded herself from her chair and walked up to Kurt, stopping just slightly closer than may have been considered appropriate. She had to look down slightly to meet his eyes. It wasn't a very big difference but she was always acutely aware of being taller than men since it had once been a source of self-consciousness for her. Her voice pitched lower and quieter when she spoke. "Quite often some of them. Imagine if you could have any woman you passed on the street? The co-worker you fantasized about. The person who you longed to touch but were forbidden? Imagine if someone could be that person for you, and not just metaphorically. They'd do every single thing you wanted, even if you wanted them to be your slave. They would be that person only better, they'd be your version of that person and give themselves to you as willingly, or as unwillingly, as you wanted. Could you resist that chance to have what you couldn't? Do you think many people could?"

He took a tiny half-step back, but was still looking up at her. "No, I do not think many people could. As for if I could... it would depend on how willing that someone was themselves."

She really did live for the reaction. Morgan could choose any number of masks to put on, but she wore this one for the effect it had on people. Effects like the one she was watching before her eyes currently. It was like well-aged wine in some ways. "Live to serve," she said quietly and carefully enunciating each word slowly.

"But by choice?" he asked gently. "Or because you were told you must?" He had issues with compulsion and slavery on several levels.

Morgan winked at him and when she did the sexual ingenue act was dropped. "Technically if they're paying you no one's forcing you," she said and sounded like she actually meant it. She chose to go curl up in her chair again. "But sometimes being forced to has nothing to do with anyone else and everything to do with circumstances."

Kurt watched her, and his face was sombre now. "Forcing can take many forms, yes, and it need not be the men who paid who were doing the forcing. It does not make it more your choice if the circumstances were responsible... but you are here now."

"That's not why I came here by a long shot," she told him flatly. "I don't need rescuing from that life. Been there, done that, got the souvenir freedom. It's amazing how quickly a madame will sell what isn't even her property to someone who sees potential in it." Her entire attitude was much more blase than many would have found appropriate for the situation. It was all ancient history to her now, though. Sure, at the time it hurt, she was depressed, miserable and even verged on suicidal ideation a few times. That was another life ago and she didn't feel any connection to it or the girl who had lived through it every day.

He looked at her and nodded slowly. Sometimes leaving things behind was the best way to cope with them. "And so you found somewhere else to be before you came here - and I am guessing you are here for powers help. That is the usual reason, for adult newcomers as for many of the children."

"Ding, ding, ding," she tapped a finger on the tip of her nose with each ding. "We have a winner. Just powers stuff. I found a family before I came here. Where isn't so important as long as you have people who matter." He could assume family came in whatever form his preconceived notion came. For better or worse, Mág Ealga really was her family. If they weren't then she wouldn't have cared to come here in the first place.

Another nod. "And family is more than blood, as complex as it can be sometimes. Mine is here in New York as much as it is in Germany... and wherever my mother is." That was all she'd get about his mother unless she outright asked.

If you didn't want a topic inquired after it was always better to outright avoid than to make vague statements to Morgan. Vague was like dangling a goldfish in front of a feral cat. She couldn't help but go along with the compulsion to pounce. "Wherever? She travel a lot? Go missing? Abandon her furry kid on sight when you manifested?" It wasn't like it wasn't a common reaction people had to suddenly manifesting mutants, her own mother was a testament to that.

"I manifested at birth", he said calmly, "and she did not so much abandon me as leave me in the care of those who delivered me. I know where she is sometimes, but it is difficult to keep track of a shapeshifter."

"Don't I know it. Especially if the shapeshifter doesn't want to be found," she muttered mostly to herself. Morgan didn't exactly consider herself a shapeshifter but if she wasn't being picky she'd agree that's what she was and she knew if someone ever went looking for Vanessa Carlysle that they'd have to scour the planet for small clues because anyone associated with that name disappeared eleven years ago. "But you know who she is, it seems. How'd you find out if she left you at birth?"

"She is... known to the people in the mansion. A simple accident with some medical tests, a few years ago, and her DNA sample came up on the system as linked to mine."

"What kind of nefarious is mummy dearest, then? The way you say 'known' I doubt it's about cupcakes and blood drives. Maybe jewel heists and slitting throats?" Morgan preferred to think of herself as blunt rather than tactless. Besides, he seemed hesitant where his mother was concerned, not sensitive.

Kurt snorted. "The second rather than the first, for the most part, but you are right. My mother's name is Raven... but she prefers to be known as Mystique. The staff know this", he added quickly, "but most of the students do not."

Morgan nodded, "Aye, well love I'm not going to tell the kidlings anything. Other people's familial dysfunction is their business, not mine. I can regale them with tales of my mother kicking me out of the house after my father's funeral after pronouncing me a demon to tuck them in at night instead." She grinned as if this was, clearly, a brilliant idea.

He chuckled quietly, not particularly amused. "That is not such an unusual thing, in this house. As I am sure you can guess, some have called me a demon, including some in my clan. I had a long time to grow used to it, however."

"Lucky for me I'm not going for originality points," she said dryly. "Stings when your dad was just shot, killed, you just saw him put in the ground and then you manifest in the middle of the gathering afterward. I wasn't exactly emotionally prepared to handle it as well as I would have otherwise." She shrugged. "But that's what happens when you're a kid."

Kurt winced at her story, nodding. "High emotion can bring on manifestation, when it is close to happening anyway. I am sorry about your father."

"Yeah, I know it can." She wondered if he was trying to educate her. Morgan had, over the years, found information on mutants and spoken to those who knew something about it. She'd figured out the emotion thing a while ago. She wasn't exactly a newly manifested teenager. He probably meant well so she tried to let it go. "Thanks, but it's okay. Dad died a while ago, I've dealt. It's life, people die."

It was more his slightly awkward way of saying he understood. "And before their time, all too often."

"There's no such thing as before their time when you don't actually know when their time is. Maybe everyone goes precisely at their time. No one knows that they don't." Morgan also liked to think about fate because if someone's fated to die then they will whether it's her pulling the trigger in a war or someone else.

Kurt inclined his head in agreement. "Of course, whatever happens is God's will. Perhaps I should have said 'before the time we hoped would be theirs'."

The mention of God made her instantly wary. She was an Irish Catholic but she was immediately suspect of anyone who brought up God in the first conversation, especially when they could be offending someone else's beliefs. Religion was one of those things she didn't bring up because there wasn't any point. A person's beliefs were their own and they were private. And they should be kept that way. "That's one way of looking at it." She could likely list off a few others but she wasn't in the mood to play devil's advocate.

He shrugged slightly. "It is mine. I do not say anyone must agree - I know that many here would not."

"There's a reason why religion is numbered among the three forbidden topics in polite conversation," she pointed out. "Some ideas are best kept to yourself. You don't ever know who won't appreciate your view of the world. Not worth the headache or unintentional offense."

"I do not hide what I believe", was the calm response. "And I fail to see why anyone should take offence when I merely mention it, not trying to force it on them."

Morgan shook her head. He wasn't the brightest bulb ever, was he? "Lots of people have unpleasant associations with God or the church or both. Some are painful, some are nightmares, some have struggled to balance their faith in their religion with something like their sexuality which their religion tells them they are going to burn for even though they keep trying to be straight." It was a different perspective, she supposed, when you actually stopped to study and understand a person. She had to if she was going to take on their life for any period of time. Most people didn't stop to think about it. "You can't help their experiences but I doubt a kid who was molested by his family's priest would understand why you don't see what the problem is when you could just cut it out of what you say to people you don't know."

"That kid will find out sooner or later what I believe", Kurt said, watching her warily. "And again, I would not force it on anyone - if they are trying to balance it, if they want to for themselves, perhaps I might be able to help, but if they reject it, I would never try to change their minds. I am not an evangelist, and if someone would react so badly to the mere mention of God in conversation, they need help I cannot give. And for the record, I do not believe that anyone will burn unless they willingly and repentantly harm the innocent in what they do."

Morgan sighed, shaking her head. "You don't get it, some things aren't about you or what you believe but about the associations and memories they stir for others. Maybe you should reflect that. And I bet that kid wouldn't mind as much if they knew you first. There's a difference between a stranger and someone you know, even a casual acquaintance." Morgan stood up, book in hand. "All God's children are not, people are going to associate God and the church with their own experiences and unless you know that isn't something traumatic you should think before you speak lest you become associated with those traumas. You can't help the unwilling but if some mutant kid's had a horrible experience at the hands of people who are fanatical anti-mutant vigilantes claiming to do God's work you might find yourself on the wrong end of some kid's powers you aren't prepared to deal with. And that's only one of the fluffy versions of worst case scenario I can think up." Most of the others involved terribly irreversible and fatal effects.

With another shake of head head Morgan stepped around him. "Nice to meet you, Kurt," she said without much feeling.

"And you, Morgan", he returned in a slightly warmer tone - but only slightly. "I will see you around the mansion, no doubt."