Scholae Secondus

by Phil Hartman

They were huddled up around the fire, having gotten changed for bed after the feast, and wrapped themselves in furs for their sleepytime tale.

#The nights are getting colder - slowly,# the storyteller thought, smiling to himself in his tunic, robe and sandals.

He gathered his cloak tighter about himself and sat before the half-circle of small children, their faces lighting up at his presence.

"So, you brave lads and lasses want to hear of the Olden Days - before the Purge, and the Bloom, and the Dividing," he said, brushing fire-hair out of his young eyes.

"Please, Taleteller ?" one of the boys asked, his hair matching that of the man sitting in the rocking chair before the fire.

He was 30-something, the Taleteller - one of those residents of the Caer gifted with a Gift enabling him to bring the stories to life, instead of just the words they were familiar with.Some Taletellers were empaths, bringing emotional nuance to their tales; some, able to animate puppets by will alone, acting out the sagas.

But this one was among the visibly Gifted, and could create visions of the tales.

"It begins when I was barely older than you," the Taleteller began, cocking an eyebrow. "I was so very young - and far less skilled than I am now. It was a time of peace, but ..."

"The humes were gettin' mean," one of the boys - blue skin, blue-black locks split by a white streak, and yellow eyes with big green irises - grumbled.

"Well, that's one way to put it, Hans," the Taleteller said, a minor scowl reminding the boy not to interrupt. The elfen boy fell silent, especially after one of his friends yanked his tail, and the young Taleteller hid a smile.

All the children "OOH"-ed when the Taleteller's first vision appeared - an angry man, with brown hair, shouting from a podium to a huge crowd.

"The unpowered were jealous, and scared, of mutantkind," the young narrator said. "The Darkwalker had been slain, true, but in the heart of the United States' capitol. Such an act frightened the people, who sought to blame all of mutantkind for the intent of the Forever Walker."

"An' Graydon Creed ran f'r president, didn't he ?" a red-haired girl piped up.

"Yes. It was his second such run ... and his true last, for his very parents rose up against him," the Taleteller said sadly. He cast another image, of the young candidate's coffin being carried into a cemetery by pallbearers.

"His follwers were outraged - they wanted the laws protecting mutantkind to be repealed," the Taleteller said. "But they soon found their petty hatreds were the least of concerns, for human or mutant.

"The Space Gods were coming back."

The kids collectively gasped, and the Taleteller nodded.

"They had planted a seed, in the Earth and its people, a very long time ago, and sought to birth that seed - at the cost of the world," the Taleteller said, frowning. Images of giant, armored beings appeared, drawing another round of gasps, before the young man continued.

"But there was hope. I didn't know it then, of course - I was busy helping the Dayspring heal -"

Two dark-haired children, with purple eyes, beamed in the front row, and the Taleteller chuckled.

"Yes, Payne, Morgain, your father and mother were among us," the young man smiled. "None of us blamed your father for his ... mistake in slaying the Forever Walker where he did. After all, we were all young, and still flush with the Psi-Lord's victory and the defeat of the Forever Walker. That, and we were trying to foresee the effects of Graydon Creed's death."

"But what 'bout the Celestials ?" a green-haired girl pleaded.

"Give'm a minute, Mel !" Payne barked, frowning.

"Pax, younglings," the Taleteller said. The kids' grumblings died away, but the young man chuckled and said, "Oh, this is dumb. I sound like some kind of fairy-tale wizard ..."

"But it's so prime, th' way you tell it !" Morgain exclaimed.

"OK, OK - let me talk normally, and I'll throw in more pictures, OK ?" the Taleteller proposed. The kids nodded, excitement audible in their stirrings, and they clapped when the young man projected an image of a host of young teenagers in red and yellow uniforms.

"We were so young ..." the Taleteller said. "OK -well, Frank had won the Olympics, and he'd fallen in love with Ray -"

The boys made gagging noises, except for the red-haired boy in front who'd begged for the story in the first place, who beamed widely.

"Yes, your folks, Aidan," the Taleteller grinned back. "Anyhow, we'd gotten through the Olympics, when Frank had this awful precognitive vision - he saw the Celestials returning. So, he tried to warn the world, but the FOH were starting up terrorist strikes, and the other superheroes were busy keeping things under control."

"But it didn't work, did it ?" Melanie said sadly.

"No ... violence started, and by election time, things were a mess," the Taleteller frowned. "The WORST possible candidate - someone even more evil than Graydon Creed, who was just stupid, at least - was elected, even if we didn't know who it was at the time. If that nutjob'd stayed in office ... well, by year's end, the U.S. was almost at a civil war.

"And then, the Celestials arrived."

"The Purge ..." the kids collectively breathed, awe crossing all their faces.

"The Purge," the Taleteller said, his voice deepening for dramatic effect. "Our cyberpath, Tom Shade, had done some fieldwork at Akkaba, Apocalypse's old base, and he figured out most of what the Celestials' real purpose was for. Frank had worked out the rest, so we went after the scumballs. We combined our powers, and - it seemed really too easy, now that I look back -they were destroyed, with the Celestial growing inside Earth."

"But that wasn't the end," Aidan said, blinking wide eyes.

"Oh, not a chance, pal," the Taleteller agreed. "Things went wacky - with the planet missing a good chunk of itself after that Celestial embryo was vaporized, we had a real mess on our hands. But what were we going to do ? We couldn't've let the Celestial hatch. Frank tried to rematerialize the right kind and amount of the Earth's mass that the Celestial had been composed of, but it wasn't going to work.

"Then, five years later, the Blossoming happened."

The girls giggled, while the boys whispered, and the Taleteller rolled his eyes.

"NO, I'm not telling you how Aidan's parents terraformed Venus," the Taleteller insisted, drawing boos and whines of protest from the kids. "You're all too young for the details.

"What matters is this: they transmuted a good deal of Venus' atmosphere from acids and carbon dioxide into nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen. For the first time in billions of years, Venus had liquid water, and the rest of the Metaforce - what we second New Mutants were calling ourselves after we'd graduated - helped in the terraforming. Lew Guthrie and Luna Maximoff were invaluable in the work; Lew force-grew photosynthetic plants, and Luna kept the planet's storms from getting too severe."

"But even with a second home, humanity was still too unwilling to live in peace with the powered. Those humans who wanted to be left alone took off for Mars..."

"THAT was a mistake," another red-haired boy, this one with green eyes, snorted contemptuously. "The Martians woke up."

The Taleteller seemed to shudder, and the kids gasped when his next vision appeared. A horrible, betentacled, green creature with a gaping maw and one bloodshot eye appeared, drooling as it crossed crimson sands.

"They had gone into stasis after a catastrophe with an asteroid had depleted their atmosphere and forced their water into a frozen state. But the greening of Venus awoke them, and they were jealous - and angry over the humans landing on their planet," the Taleteller agreed. "You're right, Eric. It was a bad mistake."

"But then us mutants came an' saved everyone !" a blonde boy, his voice shot through with twang and a wreath of fresh leaves about his brow, crowed.

The Taleteller smiled oddly and said, "In a way, Darrell. We showed the Martians the hyperspace gate back to the world they'd first come from - they were no more native to Mars than the humans OR we mutants were. The Martians left, taking their artificial moon Phobos with them as a space arc, and the Second Blossoming took place."

The kids' snickers were less audible, but the Taleteller still arched an eyebrow.

"Dirty-minded little punks," he teased, showing them an image of Mars with oceans. "OK, seriously - the humans, realizing they had more in common with mutants than they did with bug-eyed green space beasties, agreed to trade and cultural exchange with Venus. It's not a full alliance, yet, but we're working on it."

"Why ?" Eric grumbled. "They're HUMES."

"Yeah," Hans agreed. "They're not too smart, an' they're 'shamed of their own bodies, an' they still don't like mutants."

"Because to know what someone is really like, you have to meet them," the Taleteller replied, his last illusion dying with the embers of the fire. "That's enough tales for tonight, kids. Get some sleep -tomorrow's another busy day."

"OK !" "G'night !"

He rose, watching them turn in, and stepped carefully from among them to re-enter the feasting hall. Before he did, he took careful aim with one hand, and relit the fire with a blast of light.

"Nice shot," one of the adult revellers said, taking the young man's hand as the band struck up another chorus. "They paid attention ?"

"They like the old tales, Alexa," Jesse Summers smiled, dancing with the Lady of New Avalon at a respectable distance. "Hans was a little ..."

"Rabid. I know, but with those Acolytes hanging around the house ..." the shadowcasting, elfin young woman frowned. "AH well. The kids are still young. Oh - there's Chuck ! I'll see you ?"

Jesse released Alexa Wagner-Lehnsherr to let her meet her husband on the dance floor, and waved to his friends before heading for one of the Caer's plass windows.

Stars filled the Venusian night sky.

#The constellations are still unfamiliar after all this time,# the youngest son of Scott Summers thought with a weak smile. #The Purge gave me back my hearing, but I still can't tune in the music of these odd spheres ...#

#But maybe, in time, they'll sing to me. Like you...#

Jesse smiled, watching the one familiar "star" on the horizon start to lift, shining blue with reflected light.

#Earth. The next frontier for us exiles,# he thought, turning back to the rest of the Venusian High Court.

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