Incredible

[Kurt Wagner]

Kurt was five years old and more than anything he wanted to be an acrobat.  He would spend hours swinging from one bar to the next, catching this one with his tail and the next with his feet.  When the adults chased him away, he would climb up the ropes to the top of the great tent and watch them with wide yellow eyes, envious and dreaming.

But the sun was setting.  Soon people would be coming from all over to see the show.  Ma Szardos yelled for him and Kurt slid down the ropes and ran to her, bowing his head as she scolded him for running off again.  He pulled off his clothes and put on his costume, which was really only a pair of red shorts with a hole in the back for his tail.  Then he picked up his little pitch fork and climbed into the cage.

Kurt was not an acrobat.  He was a Freak.  There was the main Circus and there was the side show where visitors could look upon the siamese twins, the bearded lady, seal boy, the worlds smallest woman, the lizard man, and many others.  Kurt was the Son of Satan.  That's what people whispered when they pointed at him.  He was supposed to hiss at them, but he was usually too bored to keep that up after an hour or so.  Unless Herr. German was walking around, anyway.  He terrified the little boy.

Kurt was not the star of the show and he was positioned somewhere toward the middle of the maze of horrors of Mr. Getmann's freak show.  People began to filter past and Kurt crouched in the straw, banging his pitch fork against the bars.

Yikes, look at that.
Oh my god, it has a tail!
How do they get it to move like that?
That paint can't be healthy.
Its not paint, that's its skin.
I bet you ten bucks its paint.
*giggles* It hissed!
Can it talk?  HELLO!  Little Devil?
SHH!  Shut up!

The voices passed over Kurt like a different language.  He barely listened to them any more.  He was swishing straw around with his tail when a piece of popcorn bounced off his chest and into the straw.  He looked up and a pair of teenagers burst into a fit of giggles.  Kurt glared at them, fished the popcorn out of the straw with his tail, and popped it into his mouth anyway.

[Raven Darkholme]

Raven rarely, if ever, returned to Germany. It was a place that held too many bad memories for her, too many painful ones if she dug deep enough down. But every couple of years, she found herself returning to the place that had once been her home, curious to see what had become of the Wagner estate. It was falling into ruins now, covered with graffiti by ignorant children, posters taped and stapled to the exterior wall surrounding the property.

It was there that she first saw the posters of the little boy. The ink was faded, but there was no question about the skin colour on the child in the image; blue, and his bright eyes were practically glowing yellow. A tail was added, and when she took a step back, she couldn't help but feel certain that she knew who the boy was.

It wasn't possible. She had killed the boy, she knew it for certain... but the more she thought on it, the more she realised that she had no proof of this. And knowing the child's father...

The poster declared he was 'The Son of Satan.' How right they were.

Ripping one of the posters from the wall, the woman made her way towards the freak show, wasting little time on the outside attractions which attempted to bait her inside. She had no time for clowns or painted fools, no interest in little boys thinking they were impressive for whipping animals into submission. Instead, the woman made her way into the hall that was the sideshow, her eyes slowly taking in the people in the cages.

For the most part, they were deformed persons. She saw one, perhaps two that seemed to be fake, but for the most part, she found she was entirely disinterested. The boy on the poster must have been a fake. There was no two ways about it...

It's not paint, that's its skin! She heard the comment off to her side, a young woman exclaiming as she moved on to the next attraction. Keeping her distance, Raven scanned the room until she saw the child. He seemed to be about the right age, and he... he had her eyes, and she could no longer fool herself about it.

Teenagers stood nearby, giggling about something until the woman pushed through the pair, waving her hands in a self-important fashion to get them to leave. Crouching down to the child's height, she squinted at him a moment. Yes, he had to be the tiny child she had given up... And this was where he ended up.

Azazel saved him, if only to abandon him here? She would kill him, if she ever saw him again.

"What is your name, little one?"

[Kurt Wagner]

Kurt had gone back to mindlessly moving the straw around, looking at nothing.  He hated this.  He hated the cage.  He hated sitting there for hours and hours, long into the night, until he could barely keep his eyes open.  Once he had dared to smuggle a ball in with him so he could have something to play with.  Herr Getmann had threatened to feed him to the lion, but in the end decided to leave him in the cage for three days straight.  Kurt never brought anything into the cage again.

What is your name, little one?

Kurt turned his head and his yellow eyes widened in surprise to see a face so close.  A woman was kneeling by the bars, right beside him, close enough that he could have reached through the iron and touched her.  Visitors rarely got this close... and if they did, there were never good intentions attached.  Kurt's blue eyebrows shot up, vanishing under his mop of dark blue hair, and he hopped away from her, crouching at the far side of the cage.

Kurt turned and looked at her curiously.  Then he remembered himself and gave a half-hearted hiss.

He wasn't supposed to talk to anyone.  This is a show.  Give 'em what they want.  Act like a savage, like a monster.  They're not here for smiles and waves, they're here to be shocked.  Make sure they see your pointy teeth when you hiss.

Kurt turned his back to her as his forehead fell against the bars with a dull thud.

[Raven Darkholme]

She'd startled the boy, that much was clear. He moved quickly away from her, to the other side of his little cage, and have her a meek little hiss. The sound made her chuckle softly in her throat as she readjusted her positioning, realising she'd be kneeling there for some time.

Holding her hands up in a show of peace, she smiled across at the boy, though she knew he couldn't see it with his back to her. Quietly, she sat for a long moment, watching the child. Who in their right mind would put a child in a cage like this? But she knew who would-- people who were afraid. People who were foolish.

After a pause, she spoke up again, continuing to use her true voice. Unlike the disguised ones she would use, her natural voice sounded to some like a mixture of voices forming into one. To some, it could be frightening, disturbing. To him, she had to hope, there would be some sliver of recognition.

"Somehow... I don't think 'hiss' is your name, child." She certainly hoped that whoever had taken him in had done him the decency of giving him a name. Standing from her spot, she circled slowly around to the side of the cage that he had fled to, speaking softly, "My name is Raven. Will you tell me yours...?"

Crouching down once she was in front of him again, she kept her gaze momentarily locked on the entrance to the show, "If you're afraid of someone hearing you tell me, no one will."

[Kurt Wagner]

The woman laughed at his hiss, but it wasn't an unkind laugh.  Kurt sulked with his back to her, his long backbone and shoulder blades rippling under blue fur as he shifted his weight on the ends of his feet.  He fully expected her to move on to the next fright in the show, but instead she spoke again.  This time Kurt cocked his head to the side, distracted by the strangeness of her voice.

Then she was before him again and Kurt blinked at her.  Visitors weren't supposed to go behind the cages!  He instantly glanced around, looking for the owner of the circus or one of his men and ducked his head in anticipation of getting yelled at.  Seeing no one, he looked back at the woman.

She was speaking in English, so Kurt replied in the same language.  "Raven.  Like a bird?"  Ma Szardos had a pet raven at one time and Kurt had loved to touch its soft blue-black feathers.  It had died, or more likely she had killed it for some purpose.  Kurt had not thought of it in a very long time.  Now that he did, he could not be sure he had not dreamed it.

Raven asked for his name a second time and Kurt once again cast a wary glance over his boney shoulder, looking to the doorway.

If you're afraid of someone hearing you tell me, no one will.

Maybe she was right.  Maybe if anyone came by, they wouldn't see her there in the shadows behind the cage.  The little blue demon-boy rocked back on his heels at sat on his bottom in the straw and looked at her.  "Kurt."  He said it shyly, bowing his head and glancing up at her through his dark blue hair.  "My name is Kurt."

Who had named him this?  Where had the name come from?  Kurt had no idea.  It was just what people had always called him.

[Raven Darkholme]

His innocent question drew a smile onto her lips, and she gave a little nod in response. His English was surprisingly good, though in truth she had only spoken in that tongue because she felt certain fewer of the circus folk would be able to understand it. It was pure luck for her that the boy had understood.

"Yes, exactly. Like a bird..." Had it always been her name? No, but the name given to her by her parents was long since forgotten, and she preferred to keep their memory out of her mind. She had stolen the name Raven a long time ago, but it had remained one that was somehow special to her.

Keeping herself as carefully concealed as she could, Raven watched as the boy seemed to go through a large amount of thought over giving her his name. There must have been some sort of rule against it-- She suspected that the owner of this little show didn't want anything to humanise his little 'freaks.' Finally, he opened up.

"Kurt," She repeated the name with a soft smile, giving a nod. Names meant a lot to her; she could recall the meanings behind thousands, always choosing them carefully when she needed to do so. Kurt. In their tongue, it would have meant 'bold counsel.' Someone clearly had thought highly of the boy when naming him. She wished it had been her.

"It's very nice to meet you, Kurt. Tell me..." She paused, glancing around the area a moment, "Do you like it here? You can tell me the truth..."

[Kurt Wagner]

The lady-- Raven-- said his name with her strange voice.  Then she smiled at him and nodded, as if he had answered correctly.  Kurt lifted his head, studying her more openly now rather than sneaking glances.  She said it was nice to meet him and Kurt grinned widely.  Nice?  Yes!  This was nice.  No one had ever stopped to talk to him like this before.  At least... none that had ever coaxed an actual reply out of the boy.

Do you like it here? You can tell me the truth...

Kurt looked at her with large yellow eyes.  Kurt had never known a life outside of the Circus, so when she asked he understood her to mean here, literally, in the cage.  Did he like the cage?  He looked around at the bars, then down at the straw.  "No... I don't like scaring people but... I like that I can do this!"  He sprang up and gripped the bars across the top of the cage.  Then he swung around and looped his tail around one before letting go.  He hung there upside down from his tail, the ends of his hair brushing the straw.  He looked at the woman upside-down and spread his arms theatrically.  Then he pulled himself up and flopped down on his feet once more, crouching by the bars.  "I'm not supposed to do that though," he whispered.  It was a secret.  He hoped she wouldn't tell on him.

Kurt crouched there, his arms wrapped around his skinny knees, and looked at her intently.  He hoped she would keep talking to him!  She was nice and while her voice had been strange to him at first, he now decided he quite liked it.

[Raven Darkholme]

It was clear that the child had not understood what she meant by her question, but the answer he gave her was still an answer she would have wanted. His being locked in this cage, in this little freak show was clearly not consensual. He didn't want to be in there, didn't like being locked in a cage to be poked at and prodded. But then he leapt up, preforming his trick for her, and she couldn't help the smile that slipped onto her face.

When had she grown soft? She supposed, as this was her child, she was supposed to be soft towards him... wasn't she?

She gave a quiet little applause to his trick as he spread his arms, a quiet little laugh escaping her breath. Raven leaned ever so slightly forward when he whispered his secret, giving a faint nod in reply. "Well... Your secret is safe with me, I promise. But you are very... very gifted, does anyone ever tell you this? You have a gift."

She hoped that the rather American expression wouldn't be lost on the boy in English, and she thought to repeat her thought, "Begabt. Sehr talentiert. I bet no one else in this circus can do what you can do..."

[Kurt Wagner]

Raven applauded the little trick, which made Kurt's little heart swell inside his chest.  It was probably the first applause he'd ever gotten from a visitor!  Mostly they pointed and whispered or laughed.  Sometimes they looked sick and uncomfortable... but no one had ever clapped for him.  He instantly wanted to do more tricks for her, but she was talking again so he stayed still and listened, his eyes bright.

The woman said that he was gifted, even going so far as to phrase it in German.  He understood what she was saying.  She thought he was talented.  Talent was a big thing around the circus.  Talent made money.  Kurt looked down and picked at the straw absently, giving a half-hearted shrug.  "I am not as good as the acrobats in the circus."  He lifted his gaze back to Raven.  "Did you see them?"  Surely not-- if she had, she would not have thought Kurt was so special.

Kurt didn't want her to think he wasn't special, however. If she did, she might leave, and he didn't wan't to be alone.  He tried very hard to think of something that made him gifted and unique, and his questing eyes fell on his tail.  He wrapped his hand around the end of it and held it up.  "I am the only one with a tail!  And I am blue."  He said this with pride, but it faded quickly as he realized this was not very special.  This was what made him a freak.

Kurt sighed, his shoulders hunching.  He just wasn't enough.  He never would be.

[Raven Darkholme]

He seemed to take pride in his compliment for a moment, before some heaviness weighted him down, and the expression on someone so young was enough to break anyone's heart, she was sure. This little boy, so wonderfully gifted, and he was already putting himself down, seeing himself through their eyes. Why couldn't his father have just taken him to His realm? Why did he ever think to leave him here?

He put himself down, and before she had much of a chance to respond, he was quickly trying to find something good about himself. He chose his tail, which seemed to work for a second, before he hunched in on himself again. Frowning, Raven shook her head a bit.

"I've seen acrobats. Dozens, in my lifetime, at every circus on this Earth... and do you know what's special about them? Nothing. They all do the same thing, the same tricks, everywhere they go." Her tone was cool, casual, and she waved away the very possibility of them being better than the child with her hand.

"But you? You are unique. You have something very special to you." Cautiously, she reached between the bars to touch his cheek, smiling at him. After a moment, she retreated her hand and pursed her lips, leaning a bit closer. "You showed me your little secret. I want to show you mine..."

She started with her eyes. The pale blue of her irises slowly gave way to gold, the sclera following after. Slowly, she allowed her true form, blue and scaled, to ripple it's way down her body, until finally her true appearance was sitting before him. It was then that fear washed over her, concerned suddenly that he would be frightened to see someone like him.

[Kurt Wagner]

The nice lady said she had seen dozens of acrobats and Kurt's eyes widened.  How lucky!  He only got to see them practice; he had never seen the real show because he was always in the cage by then.  Kurt had a hundred questions on the tip of his tongue about the other circuses, but when she went on to tell him that none of them were special his confusion was written across his face.  She explained her meaning further and he gave a little frown, watching her dismissive wave of her hand.

Raven then went on to insist that Kurt was much more special than the acts she had seen.  Kurt would have protested-- after all, she had only seen him do one trick!-- but her hand cautiously reached through the bars.  He braced himself, flinching a little out of habit, but once he felt her warm hand on his cheek he slowly opened his eyes and focused on her again.

Kurt was not touched often, and when he was it was rarely done so with tenderness.  Visitors sometimes dared to reach through the bars, but Kurt knew better than to bite them or whack them with his little pitch fork.  If he hurt a guest he'd be in BIG TROUBLE.  So, usually he just stayed out of their reach.  Raven had shown nothing but kindness so far and when she drew her hand away he had to keep from reaching after it.

Raven leaned closer, her voice a whisper, and Kurt found himself doing the same.  Their faces were only inches apart, separated by the bars, when her eyes began to change.  Kurt gave a quick gasp and bit his lip, his eyes going wide with surprise.  It took only a handful of seconds for the lady's face to flicker and change and then she was blue too!

Maybe Kurt wasn't afraid because he'd seen so much growing up in the circus.  Maybe he wasn't afraid because she had only been gentle and kind.  Maybe it was because he was braver than a child his age had any right to be.  Maybe he was not afraid because her eyes were so like his.  Whatever the reason, the little boy looked at her with something like unabashed awe.  "How did you do that?" he whispered.

[Raven Darkholme]

Relief crashed over her, then, when she realised that the boy was staring at her not with horror or fear in his eyes, but something she didn't think she had ever seen when someone looked at her true body. He looked at her with amazement.

"This is my..." She trailed off, trying to choose her words carefully. Explaining the idea of mutation to a child who likely had no real idea of the concept would be difficult, no matter how smart the boy may have shown himself to be. "Some people have very special abilities, you know, that we're born with. You have blue skin and a tail that lets you do those tricks... This is my special ability."

She reached her hand back through the bars once again, allowing him to see her hand up close, to show him that there was no trickery involved in what she had done. "This is what I really look like. I just... I pretend to look different some times, because..."

He didn't need any explanation, something told her. Kurt had been locked up and on display for what he looked like. Her heart clenched with guilt once again, and she glanced around the cage a moment.

"Kurt... Do you have parents?" Her voice cracked, but she hoped he hadn't notice, "A mother, a father...? Do they let them put you in here?"

[Kurt Wagner]

To Kurt, this was magic.  Not the kind of magic Ma Szardos did... but real, good magic.  Raven again reached through the bars and Kurt gently took her hand in both of his, his little blue fingers moving over the back of her hand with wonder and innocent curiosity.  Now that their hands were so close, the similarities in their coloring was uncanny.  She was blue just like him!  Kurt had never met another blue person before.  In fact, before now, he had been certain he was the only one.

Special abilities.  He liked that.  He certainly thought what she'd just done was special and she thought he was special too.  Kurt's smile widened and he looked up at her.  "Are you here to join the circus?"  He couldn't hardly contain himself with excitement.  If she joined the circus, he would see her every day!  She was very nice and she liked to watch his tricks.  Kurt wanted to keep talking to her.  He didn't want her to go.

Kurt was still holding Raven's hand in both of his when she asked about his parents.  Kurt's brow furrowed as he considered this.  "Ma Szardos takes care of me.  And my father..."  Kurt's eyes glanced to one of the many posters that proclaimed he was the son of the devil.  Kurt didn't think this was true, but he didn't know who his real father was.  His yellow eyes focused back on Raven's face.  "I have to be in here.  I'm a freak."  Kurt said this matter-of-factly, having heard it a hundred times over since he was old enough to understand.  Freaks went in this tent; other acts went in the big tent.

At that moment one of Mr. Getmann's thugs came through the entrance.  He saw Kurt huddled in the far corner of his cage and went to kick it.  "Hey!  Wake up, you little brat!"

[Raven Darkholme]

"I'm afraid not, sweetheart... I actually live very far away, in America." She watched him observing her hand with a smile, and when his skin touched her own, she could see just how similar their colouring really was. There was no way to deny it, and she had little intention of doing any such thing now. "I came here just to see you."

She made no movement to pull her hand away from his gentle grip, and would stay there until he released her. His explanation about his family was what she had expected; a woman who looked after him, but clearly could not have cared much for him if she allowed them to lock him away, to label him as a freak for the entertainment of others. She was sickened. Azazel must have known this would happen to the boy, but he thought this was a better alternative?

Lowering her voice, she shook her head gently, "You are not a freak. You are incredible..."

She had more she wanted to say, but the sight of a man entering the space caught her off guard, and she fell silent. Observing from where she was, she heard the cruel words, watched as his foot pulled back in preparation of a swift kick to the metal bars... She moved without thinking, pulling her hand out of Kurt's gentle hold in order to shift around the cage, grabbing the man's leg and pulling it out from beneath him, sending him tumbling to his back.

"You think you're impressive, threatening a child...?" Her voice was quiet, and she stood with her feet on either side of the man's legs before she moved to place her foot on his throat, putting just enough pressure to cause pain. "Locking them up? Pointing, laughing...?"

She pressed down, not firmly enough to kill, but more than enough to scare the fool.

"Do you want to try and lock me up, miststück?"

[Kurt Wagner]

She came just to see him?  But why?  What made him so special?  Special enough to come all the way from America.  Kurt looked back down at their hands, his brow furrowed as he considered all these questions.

You are not a freak.  You are incredible.

The little blue boy felt his eyes begin to sting with tears.  If she wasn't staying, then that meant she was going to leave.  He couldn't explain it, but he had never felt this way before.  He felt like she really saw him.  When she looked at him, she looked him in the eye.  She spoke to him like he was important... in fact, she insisted that he was.  She was unlike anyone he'd ever met before.

Kurt turned his head and leaned his cheek against the back of her hand.

Then he heard the angry voice of the circus worker and jerked his head up with a gasp, his eyes wide.  They'd been caught!  Kurt expected Raven to run away, but instead she moved toward the huge man and in seconds had him on his back.  Kurt jumped to the other side of the cage and held onto the bars, looking down with his mouth gaping open.

The man was clearly terrified, first by her appearance and doubly-so when she pressed her foot across his airway.  He thrashed and choked.

Kurt looked from the man to Raven.  They were making a lot of noise and more men would come.  "Don't let them catch you!"

The man on the ground gripped Raven's ankle and the back of her knee, trying to wrench her off.