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halfamoonTitle: Waiting for her Hero
Fandom: X-Men
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Bridgit Shane (from Excalibur #93)
Rating: PG-13/T
Summary: There's not a piece of the Earth that remains the same in the wake of Krakoa's destruction. Not even a certain chapel forgotten by many in Scotland.
Word Count: 2,060
Written For: HalfAMoon 2025 Day 13: One-Hit Wonders and 100Ships 83. Scarlet
Date Written: 11 February 2025
Warnings: Light Spoilers, Christian Themes
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
The chapel is quiet except for the constant droning of her radio. Like most of the things and even poeople she has brought here, it was not hers in the beginning, but she found it and was able to repair it. It has been her only dedicated companion ever since. Of course, there have been those who had wanted to stay after they'd mended, but she always sent them on their way. This is not a place for good people to stay for long, even if it was once a church.
As she does at least once a day, she wonders whatever had become of the "good" Reverand Craig. Her lady avengers that day had certainly scared the wits out of him, but he'd lingered in the town for years. Of course, that had been when there had still been a town. Now everything else is just abandoned buildings, the people who once populated the little town long gone. The world has been ravaged by war for so long now, it's impossible to recall what actually led to the town's abrupt abandonment, but she wonders which battle had indeed finally scared them away, and if it had been an actual fight that'd scared the "good" Reverand away as well or if he'd finally met the one mutant lass who'd refused to shy away from him but still let his wrathful judgment push her to a point from whence there had been no return.
And if that happened, she wonders, humming along to the tune on the radio as she stitches the arm of her latest rescue, where is the lass now? She's often wondered if the Reverand would've berated a man the same he had every mutant lass he'd encountered. There's a part of her that is certain he'd be every bit as judgmental and in believing and claiming they'd come from the pits of Hell itself as he had with her and others, but there's a part, too, who doubts he ever would have opened his geggie to a man, any man. A man so built on hatred has little actual courage, after all.
The wolf pup at her feet whines, startling Bridigt out of her thoughts. She ties the knot and deftly cuts the thread. "Worried 'bout yuir friend, aye?" she whispers. It is almost as though the pup can understand her, the way he cocks his shaggy head to the side and whines again. The girl was a wolf herself, she recalls, and not for the first time does she wonder if this pup, who stays far more by her once heroine's side than her own has a link to her. She'll learn the truth, she reckons, when Rahne does finally wake. If she wakes.
Rahne and her friends were a blessing to her, the day they were all here in this church. She'd heard the words Rahne had screamed at the Reverand, who had deserved every bit of them and more. She'd been tempted to go with the three mutant superheroes, but she'd had a family of her own then. Then, before the monsters had come through the forest on an almost nightly basis. Then before one war and then another and another and another had erupted.
The townsfolk had wanted to blame the mutants at one time, she recalls, thinking back as she gathers her supplies, but she'd had none of it, and not just because she herself was one. She'd never forgotten what Rahne, Kitty, and Meggan had done for her that day. It seems so odd now, the reports that Kitty Pryde has turned into a killer, but then it makes as much sense as the good Lady Moira who had rescued Rahne returning to ransack her keep.
Oh, she'd heard the tales. They'd all heard the tales, of how Lady Moira, the once revered Scientist and loyal friend to the mutants, had returned and went howling mad as a banshee. They'd said she'd killed mutants by the score, and hadn't stopped there. Bones were said to litter the lighthouse now, and Bridgit had no trouble believing it. After all, she'd seen the waves turn a crimson red one night, when a woman had been screaming up at the lighthouse. She'd turned, fled, and never went back again to try to seek Excalibur.
It wasn't as though they would've been able to restore her mum though. It had been no war, mutant, or other beastie that had killed her beloved mum so early. That one, she did remember, and remembered it well. Her mum had been sick already when she'd taken her in, but Brdgit had believed she would get better. She had prayed for her day in and night out sometimes, but still the miracle she'd sought had never arrived. She'd learned to tend to the scabs that had appeared on her body because the doctors were too pricey. That was why she'd finally gone seeking Excalibur's help again, even though she'd heard tale that they were gone. She had hoped she would find someone still there, someone who might be able to reach out to her heroes themselves or might at least have a kind heart or knowing mind.
But she had never made it onto Muir Isle. The storm had swept up out of nowhere when she had been making her way, and it had sent her little paddleboat crashing back onto the land. She'd tried to wait it out, thinking she could repair the boat and try again in the light of day, but then she'd heard the screaming. She'd heard the wailing and what sounded like the gnashing of teeth. She'd witnessed the sea churning until it had ran scarlet with blood pouring through its dark waters.
The next time she'd ventured too close to the shoreline, the blood had been gone, but she'd never forgotten, nor would she, what she had witnessed that night. People say the isle is haunted now. She's not certain what to believe, but she knows what she saw.
She cannot help feeling that it was God who threw her boat back against the shore. It had been safe when Excalibur had been there, but they had not been there for so long now and no one knows why. Rahne will have the answers, though, to that and so many more questions, if ever she will wake.
She does know better than to believe the news currently spitting forth from the radio. She knows the truth from everything Rahne and the others said. Professor Xavier is not evil -- she doesn't bloody well care who says what. He is not evil, just as mutants are not evil. He was a good man who'd tried to help. The medicines coming off the mutant isle may have been laced, but she remains just as certain that the X-Men who had sent the medicines back into their world had never known and had believed they'd been doing the right thing. A true evil may have well intercepted the medicines on their way back into this world and tainted them then. After all, she knows better than most, she thinks, feeling a chill, how great the evil of one person can be. That person may well not have even been a mutant, or even a human for that matter, with as many aliens as she constantly hears are visiting the Earth these days.
Again, there are so many questions with no answers, but Rahne will have them all when she wakes. If she wakes. That thought nearly stops her in her tracks. Her bucket of supplies rattles in her suddenly trembling hand. She must wake! She must have the answers!
Bridgit hears a moan from a bed by which she's passing. She makes note of its occupant and to return to check on her, but right now, she only wants to see her hero. The pup's whines urge her forward, and she almost thinks she might find Rahne awake from the way he cries so incessantly. But of course, she doesn't.
Bridgit sinks down to the pillows beside her one, genuine friend, her green eyes desperately taking in her pale form in the golden hue of her lantern. She searches for any sign that anything has changed, but there is none. There never is. She remembers how bright, proud, and true had been that day, when she at last had stood up to the same Priest who had bullied her so when she'd been Bridgit's age at that time. She's heard tale that Excalibur used to hop back and forth between dimensions, and Meggan had certainly appeared to be more Fae than mutant that day.
She wonders, not for the first time, what evils have touched Rahne since the day they first met. Her hands ball into tight fists. Whatever horrors inflicted this on her friend surely are from Hell or worse, if there is such. There are long days when she almost does not know what to believe any more. But then she thinks of Rahne, her Avenging Angel that day in this very church, and how her arrival had answered every prayer she'd been praying then for weeks.
"God sent yoo tae me," she whispers, reaching out and taking her hand. She seems so cold, so deathly still, but all her vitals are still good. Tears well in Bridgit's green eyes as she hears the latest newscast, speaking again of how evil mutants are. She knows better. She may have once doubted it, may have once believed her own self even to be a wicked and vile abomination, but Rahne taught her better. Her friends taught her better.
Mutants are not evil! The world simply fears and hates them for their differences, much as they would have shot the pup currently crying at her feet upon sight. They never would have given him a chance. They never would have given her a chance, but Excalibur had. Rahne had.
She squeezes her friend's pale, small hand in her own. "Please wake," her quiet sob seeming to echo far more loudly than the radio. "Please please please please please wake." She lays her head over Rahne's hand as she sobs, begs, pleas, and prays. But there is no answer, no response, no other sounds other than her prayers, the pup's whines, and the newscaster who just keeps painting mutants in an evil light.
They'd never believe Jesus either, she thinks, her tears soaking Rahne's bedding. They all judged and hated Him when He walked amongst them. The more miracles He performed, the more He gave, the more He was feared and hated. Not, she thinks, unlike the good people of the X-Men. They have given this world so much, and it only continues to hate and hurt them. She knows the truth. She knows they fight for the Lord. She knows they are merciful, benevolent benefactors in this world that hates them with every bit of fury as the Reverand had possessed every time he'd spoken. There are nights she can still hear his thunderous voice echoing off these old walls.
But right now, she only hears her own cries. The radio has cut out, its signal lost for the time being. She knows she should turn it off for the radio frequency may well draw more mutant haters to this wee church one day. It may draw more haters to her and those she finds sick and injured in the Scotland forests and brings here to help recover. She's doing the Lord's work now, just as the X-Men have always done. Just as Lady Rahne has always done.
"Please please please please wake," she begs again. But there is no answer. She fears far too often that there may never be. But she'll keep trying. She'll keep begging. She'll keep praying. And maybe, one day, just as Rahne and her friends came to her rescue on that day when she'd prayed so long, hard, and fervently, she might finally get answers. Maybe one day, she'll never be alone again. Maybe one day, she'll wake.
Bridgit cries. The pup whines. A new song begins to crackle over the radio. Still Brdgit cries with the same old prayer echoing in the otherwise still chapel. "Please, Lord, let muh friend wake. Let 'er be okay."
The End
Fandom: X-Men
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Bridgit Shane (from Excalibur #93)
Rating: PG-13/T
Summary: There's not a piece of the Earth that remains the same in the wake of Krakoa's destruction. Not even a certain chapel forgotten by many in Scotland.
Word Count: 2,060
Written For: HalfAMoon 2025 Day 13: One-Hit Wonders and 100Ships 83. Scarlet
Date Written: 11 February 2025
Warnings: Light Spoilers, Christian Themes
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
The chapel is quiet except for the constant droning of her radio. Like most of the things and even poeople she has brought here, it was not hers in the beginning, but she found it and was able to repair it. It has been her only dedicated companion ever since. Of course, there have been those who had wanted to stay after they'd mended, but she always sent them on their way. This is not a place for good people to stay for long, even if it was once a church.
As she does at least once a day, she wonders whatever had become of the "good" Reverand Craig. Her lady avengers that day had certainly scared the wits out of him, but he'd lingered in the town for years. Of course, that had been when there had still been a town. Now everything else is just abandoned buildings, the people who once populated the little town long gone. The world has been ravaged by war for so long now, it's impossible to recall what actually led to the town's abrupt abandonment, but she wonders which battle had indeed finally scared them away, and if it had been an actual fight that'd scared the "good" Reverand away as well or if he'd finally met the one mutant lass who'd refused to shy away from him but still let his wrathful judgment push her to a point from whence there had been no return.
And if that happened, she wonders, humming along to the tune on the radio as she stitches the arm of her latest rescue, where is the lass now? She's often wondered if the Reverand would've berated a man the same he had every mutant lass he'd encountered. There's a part of her that is certain he'd be every bit as judgmental and in believing and claiming they'd come from the pits of Hell itself as he had with her and others, but there's a part, too, who doubts he ever would have opened his geggie to a man, any man. A man so built on hatred has little actual courage, after all.
The wolf pup at her feet whines, startling Bridigt out of her thoughts. She ties the knot and deftly cuts the thread. "Worried 'bout yuir friend, aye?" she whispers. It is almost as though the pup can understand her, the way he cocks his shaggy head to the side and whines again. The girl was a wolf herself, she recalls, and not for the first time does she wonder if this pup, who stays far more by her once heroine's side than her own has a link to her. She'll learn the truth, she reckons, when Rahne does finally wake. If she wakes.
Rahne and her friends were a blessing to her, the day they were all here in this church. She'd heard the words Rahne had screamed at the Reverand, who had deserved every bit of them and more. She'd been tempted to go with the three mutant superheroes, but she'd had a family of her own then. Then, before the monsters had come through the forest on an almost nightly basis. Then before one war and then another and another and another had erupted.
The townsfolk had wanted to blame the mutants at one time, she recalls, thinking back as she gathers her supplies, but she'd had none of it, and not just because she herself was one. She'd never forgotten what Rahne, Kitty, and Meggan had done for her that day. It seems so odd now, the reports that Kitty Pryde has turned into a killer, but then it makes as much sense as the good Lady Moira who had rescued Rahne returning to ransack her keep.
Oh, she'd heard the tales. They'd all heard the tales, of how Lady Moira, the once revered Scientist and loyal friend to the mutants, had returned and went howling mad as a banshee. They'd said she'd killed mutants by the score, and hadn't stopped there. Bones were said to litter the lighthouse now, and Bridgit had no trouble believing it. After all, she'd seen the waves turn a crimson red one night, when a woman had been screaming up at the lighthouse. She'd turned, fled, and never went back again to try to seek Excalibur.
It wasn't as though they would've been able to restore her mum though. It had been no war, mutant, or other beastie that had killed her beloved mum so early. That one, she did remember, and remembered it well. Her mum had been sick already when she'd taken her in, but Brdgit had believed she would get better. She had prayed for her day in and night out sometimes, but still the miracle she'd sought had never arrived. She'd learned to tend to the scabs that had appeared on her body because the doctors were too pricey. That was why she'd finally gone seeking Excalibur's help again, even though she'd heard tale that they were gone. She had hoped she would find someone still there, someone who might be able to reach out to her heroes themselves or might at least have a kind heart or knowing mind.
But she had never made it onto Muir Isle. The storm had swept up out of nowhere when she had been making her way, and it had sent her little paddleboat crashing back onto the land. She'd tried to wait it out, thinking she could repair the boat and try again in the light of day, but then she'd heard the screaming. She'd heard the wailing and what sounded like the gnashing of teeth. She'd witnessed the sea churning until it had ran scarlet with blood pouring through its dark waters.
The next time she'd ventured too close to the shoreline, the blood had been gone, but she'd never forgotten, nor would she, what she had witnessed that night. People say the isle is haunted now. She's not certain what to believe, but she knows what she saw.
She cannot help feeling that it was God who threw her boat back against the shore. It had been safe when Excalibur had been there, but they had not been there for so long now and no one knows why. Rahne will have the answers, though, to that and so many more questions, if ever she will wake.
She does know better than to believe the news currently spitting forth from the radio. She knows the truth from everything Rahne and the others said. Professor Xavier is not evil -- she doesn't bloody well care who says what. He is not evil, just as mutants are not evil. He was a good man who'd tried to help. The medicines coming off the mutant isle may have been laced, but she remains just as certain that the X-Men who had sent the medicines back into their world had never known and had believed they'd been doing the right thing. A true evil may have well intercepted the medicines on their way back into this world and tainted them then. After all, she knows better than most, she thinks, feeling a chill, how great the evil of one person can be. That person may well not have even been a mutant, or even a human for that matter, with as many aliens as she constantly hears are visiting the Earth these days.
Again, there are so many questions with no answers, but Rahne will have them all when she wakes. If she wakes. That thought nearly stops her in her tracks. Her bucket of supplies rattles in her suddenly trembling hand. She must wake! She must have the answers!
Bridgit hears a moan from a bed by which she's passing. She makes note of its occupant and to return to check on her, but right now, she only wants to see her hero. The pup's whines urge her forward, and she almost thinks she might find Rahne awake from the way he cries so incessantly. But of course, she doesn't.
Bridgit sinks down to the pillows beside her one, genuine friend, her green eyes desperately taking in her pale form in the golden hue of her lantern. She searches for any sign that anything has changed, but there is none. There never is. She remembers how bright, proud, and true had been that day, when she at last had stood up to the same Priest who had bullied her so when she'd been Bridgit's age at that time. She's heard tale that Excalibur used to hop back and forth between dimensions, and Meggan had certainly appeared to be more Fae than mutant that day.
She wonders, not for the first time, what evils have touched Rahne since the day they first met. Her hands ball into tight fists. Whatever horrors inflicted this on her friend surely are from Hell or worse, if there is such. There are long days when she almost does not know what to believe any more. But then she thinks of Rahne, her Avenging Angel that day in this very church, and how her arrival had answered every prayer she'd been praying then for weeks.
"God sent yoo tae me," she whispers, reaching out and taking her hand. She seems so cold, so deathly still, but all her vitals are still good. Tears well in Bridgit's green eyes as she hears the latest newscast, speaking again of how evil mutants are. She knows better. She may have once doubted it, may have once believed her own self even to be a wicked and vile abomination, but Rahne taught her better. Her friends taught her better.
Mutants are not evil! The world simply fears and hates them for their differences, much as they would have shot the pup currently crying at her feet upon sight. They never would have given him a chance. They never would have given her a chance, but Excalibur had. Rahne had.
She squeezes her friend's pale, small hand in her own. "Please wake," her quiet sob seeming to echo far more loudly than the radio. "Please please please please please wake." She lays her head over Rahne's hand as she sobs, begs, pleas, and prays. But there is no answer, no response, no other sounds other than her prayers, the pup's whines, and the newscaster who just keeps painting mutants in an evil light.
They'd never believe Jesus either, she thinks, her tears soaking Rahne's bedding. They all judged and hated Him when He walked amongst them. The more miracles He performed, the more He gave, the more He was feared and hated. Not, she thinks, unlike the good people of the X-Men. They have given this world so much, and it only continues to hate and hurt them. She knows the truth. She knows they fight for the Lord. She knows they are merciful, benevolent benefactors in this world that hates them with every bit of fury as the Reverand had possessed every time he'd spoken. There are nights she can still hear his thunderous voice echoing off these old walls.
But right now, she only hears her own cries. The radio has cut out, its signal lost for the time being. She knows she should turn it off for the radio frequency may well draw more mutant haters to this wee church one day. It may draw more haters to her and those she finds sick and injured in the Scotland forests and brings here to help recover. She's doing the Lord's work now, just as the X-Men have always done. Just as Lady Rahne has always done.
"Please please please please wake," she begs again. But there is no answer. She fears far too often that there may never be. But she'll keep trying. She'll keep begging. She'll keep praying. And maybe, one day, just as Rahne and her friends came to her rescue on that day when she'd prayed so long, hard, and fervently, she might finally get answers. Maybe one day, she'll never be alone again. Maybe one day, she'll wake.
Bridgit cries. The pup whines. A new song begins to crackle over the radio. Still Brdgit cries with the same old prayer echoing in the otherwise still chapel. "Please, Lord, let muh friend wake. Let 'er be okay."
The End
