Kurt and Sarah | Sunday afternoon

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Sarah is watching a movie in the rec room and Kurt happens upon her in an embarrassing situation. He offers to give her some further training as a result.



Lunging at nothing, Sarah made her best attempt at a lunge with the tv's remote control as her make-shift lightsaber. She was the only one in the rec room - or so she thought - and had just finished watching one of the many original trilogy Star Wars marathons that so many of the networks ran from time to time. She wouldn't classify herself as a huge Star Wars fan, nor a Trekkie for that matter, but even she had to admit that lightsabers were effing awesome.

Her and her sister had many a playfight, pretending to be wielding lightsabers in the form of pillows, empty cardboard tubes when they found them, or - to their mother's chagrin - the living room curtain rods once, while the curtains were down for cleaning, which ended up in a ding to their allowance for having to replace them and a grounding. It still hadn't curtailed her occasional dreams of interstellar swashbuckling, though, especially right after the end of one of the movies. She was careful not to accidentally damage anything or knock something over, but she was carving at the air something fierce.

Kurt was standing in the doorway, watching her with a kind of puzzled amusement. All he could see, after all, was Sarah slashing at the apparently empty air with a remote control.

After a few moments of trying to work it out, he asked "Is there an insect that needs killing?"

Jumping at the voice of someone else, meaning she wasn't alone after all, Sarah froze in the middle of parrying a deadly incoming Sith attack and almost dropped her weapon - er, the remote. She looked over her should, seeing Kurt standing there, and blushed profusely at being caught goofing around. "Oh, no, sorry. I was just..." She didn't quite know how to put it into words, though the tv was still on and the familiar style of credits rolling behind her, with the famous John Williams score playing over them.

He glanced over her shoulder at the screen, tilted his head, then grinned. "Ah, I see. Just having some fun?"

She grinned awkwardly, trying not to look as embarrassed as she felt. "Yes, sir." Sarah looked around to make sure she hadn't actually damaged anything in her faux swashbuckling. "Um. How are you?"

"Very well, thank you, Sarah. And you?"

"I'm ok, I guess. Was just watching a movie." She nodded to the tv and the still rolling credits. "Not much else to do today, really." True, she could maybe be studying, but where was the fun in that?

"Quiet days are sometimes good", he observed, "but we cannot have you being bored. I wonder, would you like to learn real sword forms?"

Her jaw dropped a little as she mistook what he said there. as fixated on Star Wars as she was at the moment. "You have lightsabers here?" That was amazing. Forget that there were others here with far more amazing and real powers and abilities. "I mean, if you think I could take part, that'd be cool, yeah!"

"Well, we have swords", he corrected, sorry to disappoint her, then added, "And Dr. McCoy is a mechanical genius. I am sure he could make you some approximation of a lightsaber if you want one."

She couldn't help but appear a little crestfallen at that, but still, it was an appealing offer nonetheless. Her powers did little in her mind to help offensively / defensively, and it sure seemed like it'd be fun. Sarah raised an eyebrow at the last suggestion too. "Ooh. I mean, it's no biggie, I don't want to put anyone through any trouble, sir. But lessons might be nice, yes." She smiled, still a little embarrassed at her fangirling all over the place.

"I will ask him", Kurt promised. "He usually does enjoy a challenge. And I will be glad to teach you how to handle it properly."

"Thank you!" That was amazing. Her day had been made, quite possibly her week or her month even. Sarah smiled at Kurt, extremely grateful for what he was going to do. "That would be great, I'd really appreciate that, Mr. Sefton."

"You are very welcome." He smiled back. "We can have our first lesson now, if you like, since your movie has finished."

"Oh, ok, sure!" No time like the present, she supposed. Lesson the first: put the remote down, she figured, and did as much. "Should I go and change or something?" Sarah wasn't really dressed for anything sporty or active at the moment, and had no idea what the first lesson might entail.

"No, I do not think so", he said after a moment's consideration of her clothes. "The basics are more of footwork and positioning of the sword than anything very strenuous."

That made sense, then; she wasn't in any work out appropriate clothing but jeans and a t-shirt would be just fine for footwork and the like. "Alright then, I guess I'm ready."

"Then to the gym we shall go", Kurt declared cheerfully.

Sarah was just about to ask if they'd be doing it there or somewhere else, but he answered the question for her. "Ok then!" She smiled and gladly followed him there. "Thank you again, sir, I really appreciate the offer." It would be nice to have some kind of experience with defending herself if or when the need ever came up, after all.

"I like to pass on what I know", he said with a grin. "I have taught sword work before, and my brother and I did it for part of our living at one time."

It was certainly a big part of what made him a great teacher. Sarah nodded, grateful that he felt that way. "Oh, that's neat. Is your brother also... does he have abilities too?" She also wondered if he shared Kurt's appearance, which was something she'd never ask aloud, but did wonder about. Physical mutations did discomfort her a bit but she was trying her best not to let it get to her. Her excitement at learning something as cool as this, coupled with Star Wars!fangirling over a potential faux lightsaber, made that much easier at the moment.

"He is baseline human", Kurt answered both the spoken and unspoken question. "I was adopted as an infant, in fact, and all the family except my sister Amanda and Meggan are baseline. Although our younger sister Jimaine has certain abilities even without being a mutant."

"Ahhh, ok." She didn't realize he had such a big family. "My sister is too. Baseline, I mean, or she is so far anyway." She hadn't talked to her in a few days but Sarah doubted something that drastic had changed in that short of a time, but who knew? "She can do things without being a mutant?" That confused Sarah a bit, she wasn't sure how that whole thing worked.

"She is a witch", Kurt said matter of factly. "Not a strong one, until our mother died and passed on the power to her, but now, yes indeed. Magic is the only other way I know for a human to have powers."

"Oh, your mother was one too?" She knew that parents could pass their mutant genes onto their children, or that their kids had a good chance of becoming mutants themselves, but she didn't know magic could do that too. Sarah didn't know all that much about magic at all, to be honest.

"She was", he confirmed. "And all the female line in our family for a long way back. Amanda is the oldest girl, really, she should have been the draborni, but she did not want it, and besides she had power of her own. Jimaine did not, and she wanted it so."

"Oh wow. You have a very interesting family history, Mr. Sefton." Sarah smiled and meant that as a compliment, and hopefully he would take it as such. Her parents were divorced workaholics, there were no such claims to mutants or magic, not that she knew of, at least.

He laughed at that. "Sarah, my dear, I have only scratched the surface. I have... let me see. One brother and two sisters who are related by blood to each other but not to me, little Meggan who we adopted much later and is not physically related to any of us, one half-sister by blood fathered by a shapeshifter who was my birth mother, three half-siblings by my birth father who do not know I exist, and an adopted son. And at least one unofficially adopted sibling."

Sarah blinked at that. Only scratched the surface indeed! "Holy cow, that is a lot to keep track of." How Kurt was able to do so was beyond her, perhaps it was some kind of secondary mutation or something. Just hearing it was confusing her. "It's good to have family, though."

"Very much so", he agreed, and it was heartfelt. "I was raised to believe family is the most important thing you can ever have, blood or no blood."

"That's what my Nana says too." Sarah felt that way as well, family was definitely important.

"Then she sounds like a wise woman. You mentioned you live with your grandmother when you are not here, if I remember right?"

"Yeah, I think so anyway." She smiled, of course she was biased since it was her grandma, but still. "Not 100% of the time, but a lot of it, yeah." She nodded. "With my parents so busy and living apart, Jess and I end up being with our grandparents a fair bit, my mom's folks mostly."

"I am sure your grandparents enjoy it, too. So many extended families in this modern world see each other too rarely." He smiled back.

"I think they do, yeah." She liked to think so anyway, and they certainly seemed to have her and Jess over, with Jess spending time there while she was at school here. Sarah knew she loved spending time with them, at any rate.

"You have been told they are welcome to visit, yes?" he asked suddenly. "Your sister, too."

She most likely had been told that in the past, probably several times, but it's something she'd never really considered. It would be awesome, though, totally. "I haven't told them that, but I will, totally. It'd be nice for them to visit." She really missed her sister, and it would great for her to meet some of her friends at the school too.

"We even have official parents' days", Kurt told her. "Although of course if they live near here, or another time is more convenient, those are not the only time they can come."

"They're in DC, so they're not too, too far away, really." Not on the other side of the country or anything, or on another continent, so she was lucky in that regard. "I'll mention it to Jess when we talk tonight - we usually catch up on Sunday nights on the phone - maybe they can visit sometime soon."

He nodded, as they reached the gym doors. "I thought it would be a good possibility to keep in mind."

"Definitely, I can't wait to tell her!" That and the news about new training and maybe getting a lightsaber, holy cow. It was a great day indeed, and left her with lots to tell her sister about.