Her audience was spellbound, listening raptly to the tale she wove with ease. Many years of practice had kept the art of storytelling alive, at least in her little family. The rest of the world was so entranced by technology that it had ceased to put importance on such things, preferring instead to put babies to sleep with electronic lullabies and send young children off to dreamland with the latest encyclopedic subliminal learning techniques ringing in their ears. The young faces in front of her loved this time of the week when they could encircle her feet and learn about fairies, knights, genies, witches, and other mythical creations of imagination. Tonight, though, she had chosen a different tale to tell them with real-life heroes and real-life problems and she realized it might have been a bad choice when she looked down and noticed there wasn’t a dry eye in the room, even counting the adults. After she finished her story there was a moment of silence before many hands began to tentatively rise in the air.

She smiled benignly and pointed to a small little imp in the middle row. "Yes, sweetie?"

"Grammegs, this is about us, isn’t it? About our past, I mean."

She nodded. "Yes it is. By law the history books don’t tell you anything anymore about the struggles of mutants to gain their rights so that no one has any hard feelings about the discriminations they faced. Everyone’s part of a big happy family now and everyone is treated the same, no matter who they are. But I need for you to understand that the fight was a long, hard one and to understand the sacrifices they made to make sure you have a much better life. They were just the same as you and me, with all the faults, tempers, loves, losses, and problems that anyone has in life and on top of it all they tried to make the world a better place." Her words sounded a little melodramatic to her but her audience lapped them up anyway, trusting her to tell them the truth about the past.

Pointing to another hand, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the mantelpiece and smiled absently. In her eyes and mind, she was still a young woman. That ancient, wrinkled creature with a thick mane of gray hair didn’t resemble how she felt at all.

"Grammegs, did all the X-Men die fighting for rights?"

"No, child, they didn’t. Some went on to have families and the children from those families were your grandparents and great-grandparents." Her sharp eyes wrinkled with pleasure now that she could see their young faces brighten with that thought.

"So they were heroes!" exclaimed one youngster who clapped a hand over his mouth when he remembered he hadn’t raised his hand.

She cackled. "Yes, Godfrey, they were."

Another hand fairly twisted itself out of socket trying to gain her attention. "What about Cyclops and Dr. Grey? Did they get married?" There was a nod and the questioner went on. "What about Wolverine and Rogue? Did they?"

Involuntarily, her eyes grew watery and she paused to wipe them. "They did get married, sweetie, but she died later and he left. He loved her very much and couldn’t stand to be without her."

Another hand and another question rang out. "Were they your parents?"

There was another moment of silence, for no one knew if she would answer the question and, to tell the truth, she wondered if she could. "I’m old, Addison, very old and yes, he was old enough to be my father but I always considered him more like an older brother or a favorite uncle. My parents were normal and I loved them very much."

"You knew the X-Men personally?" whispered another child.

"Yes, I did. And I wanted more than anything to become one of them, but I never did. My mutation was never powerful enough to help very much."

There was one last tentative hand. "Can you tell us more about them next time? Can we have another story on the X-Men?" piped up one little girl with green skin and a chorus of agreements echoed the sentiment, even from the adults.

"I think it’s past some children’s bedtimes," one adult said as he rose from the floor. "We don’t want to tire Grammegs out."

The awwws were deafening until Grammegs raised her hand. "I’ll compromise if you will. How about we add another night of storytelling to the week, say Wednesdays?" She rose gracefully from the chair despite her years. "I’m up for it, how about you?"

The room emptied and she waived off the adults who stayed behind to escort her to her rooms in the mansion. She had inherited Xavier’s school through her longevity and had run it long and well, maintaining its history of being a renowned place of high education and loving understanding by helping mutant children find their place in a world that actually had begun to open its arm to them, much to her satisfaction. She moved to the French doors that led to the balcony beyond the library and found herself out in the faint moonlight, enjoying the breeze one last time before resting for the night. The wind tickled her sensitive nose with a very familiar scent and she laughed aloud.

"I know you’re here!" Her cat-like yellow eyes scanned the dark shadows near her. There was a brief flare of a struck match and the faint glow of a cigar afterward and she grinned. "Ah, there you are. You shouldn’t be smoking. It’s bad for you."

There was a low chuckle. "You shouldn’t be out of bed at this hour."

She grinned impishly, suddenly reminded of a time he spent with her in a garden so long ago when she was ten. He moved out of the shadows and they embraced, she reveling in his warmth and kindness and he marveling at the frailty she had achieved after yet another year apart. They sat on the small bench and looked out over the garden.

"Happy birthday, kitten."

She nodded. "I knew you’d come. You always do. You’re the only one who can remember when my birthday is."

"If you’d tell them, they’d know, too, you know."

"I could but why make it easy for them? Did you hear the story?"

A lazy curl of smoke rose in the air. "Yes."

"You mad?"

He chuckled. "No. It just made me think of her."

"I never asked you, what was her real name?"

"Marie…Marie D’Ancanto."

"So she was Princess Mary."

She watched him stare at her and wondered if he had to force himself to look beyond the wrinkles to the little girl she knew was still inside her.

"You remember that?"

She smiled proudly. "I remember every story you ever told me, Logan." There was a small sigh. "Now I tell the stories."

"So I hear, Grammegs," his voice commented dryly.

"Just so you know, my grandchildren called me Gram and the other children merged it with Megan and it became Grammegs. Now everyone calls me that because they can’t remember my real name or don’t want to." Megan watched his face fall slightly. "Oh. Logan, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up children."

He shrugged. "They’re in a better place now, with Marie. Maybe some day I can join them."

She leaned back in the bench and regarded him. "You keep tabs on your grandchildren, though, right?"

"They know me but they don’t know who I am. It would spook them too much. You’re the only one who knows who I really am now, the only one who knows my real name." He leaned over and ruffled her hair to break the tension. "Lucky you."

"Yes, I am lucky, thank you very much," she teased back.

They sat for a while in a comfortable silence, each with their own thoughts.

"Logan?"

There was a grunt.

"Just for a moment, I want to take a break away from being the adult. I want to forget that old stranger I see in the mirror. I want to fly away from here and do impossible things and save other people."

There was a low, admonishing growl. "Megan, you’ve saved more lives, helped more people, and made more of a difference that the X-Men ever did."

There was a shining look of pride. "Really?"

"Really," he said softly. "But if you want I can make you forget you’re the adult and let you fly away from here."

She beamed, revealing the wonderful spirit in her that would never get old no matter what she looked like on the outside.

"Okay," Megan replied. She cocked her head and watched him toss the cigar away before leaning back, inviting her to cradle her head on his shoulder by stretching his arm out behind her on the back of the bench.

"Once upon a time…"

End