"I kinda like them."
That's what I said when they asked me. When Logan touched them in askance.
It's not true.
The strands of hair that frame my face are stark white. It's not a retro thing. It's not a rebellious thing. It's a mourning thing.
Once back in high school, a friend of mine once wore a small stitched white flower in her hair. People took it as a fashion statement, however strange. But Xin did not make fashion statements, she was as clueless about fashion and clothes as anyone could be in this day and age. The only reason her socks matched was because her mother bundled them in pairs.
"What is it?" I asked her.
Xin turned her tired eyes at me. She always seemed so tired these days. We hadn't talked that much during the summer, her mother had cancer.
"My mother's dead. The white," she gestured to the flower, speaking in monotone, "Is a mourning thing." Her voice was hollow, vacant.
For a moment I did not know what to say. What do you say? Nothing will ever take that pain away. So I did the only thing that I knew to do. I hugged her, hoping that my warmth will chase some of the cold away. She started to shake and shudder. My shoulder grew wet with tears, but she never made a noise. In silence, with the white flower against her black hair, she mourned for her mother.
I wear white in my hair for a man. His name is Erik Lehnsherr. White for the child that died amongst the stench of evil and the ashes of the innocent. For the man that could no see love, for he was already blinded by despair. He escaped death, he did not come back emptyhanded.
I screamed that day. The day Erik gave me his powers. His memories. I screamed not because the machine hurt me. That was nothing compared to what he gave me. I was stunned when he seeped into me, foreign and unsettling. I was able to separate myself from him, tucking him into a corner. But the machine yanked and spread him out across my mind, like ink soaking through paper until I was him and he was me. What he experienced in his entire life, I experienced in seconds. It wasn't even long enough for me form a tear, but just enough to feel the ghost sensations in my skin. The pain was painted across a new canvas, me, and was at once fresh again. Horror was only when I realized the screams that were coming out of my mouth weren't mine, but his and those whose screams he keeps hearing at night.
Professor Xavier helped me to push Erik back into the corner. But I learned I could not forget. His memories in me were no longer new, but old like faded photographs. Yet I knew, they were always new in his mind. They were the last moments of his life as he knew it, carved into the gray matter of his mind, like the last instructions of the dead. It was all he had now. He was permanently reliving hell.
But all that's permanent is death.
And thus his flesh walks the earth though Erik Lehnsherr is no longer there.
So in silence, with white tresses in my hair, I mourn for Erik.
End.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Magneto makes such a great villian. And yes, as I recall, there is a tradition of that sort in some Asian countries (uh, yeah, you'll have to read to find out what I'm talking about). Many thanks to Laura and Jess, you know why. ^_^