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Author's Chapter Notes:
WARNINGS: CHAVEN. SCOTT AND JEAN BROKE UP (I warned you about ravenous, blood sucking bunnies).

This is the end of WSR. Magister II is being put up elsewhere, probably. Series is not done, and you are invited to submit other pieces. Yes, there will be more ROGAN.

Sorry GoodKarmaPlease. I'll let you know right away when new stuff goes up!
It is strange, Charles muses. Raven has returned to him, as has Logan to Rogue, and Piotr to Kitty. But it is not a bad strange, this once. His Raven sits with him, holds his hand or slings an arm around his waist in their shared bed, and it isn’t enough.

Not when Logan drives Rogue to screaming climax within perhaps a half hour of shutting their door. Not when Piotr races around the mansion, Kitty giggling on his shoulders. Not when Jack spars with Victoria, winning smiles and full body laughter easily.

Truly, for Charles, watching multiple courtships progress, seeing relationships like that of Victoria and Jack, or Storm and Hank, it is a torture he wouldn’t wish on anyone. He can’t forget that he was young once, too. That Raven did love him as more than her brother. But that was when he was a virile young man, before his mutation claimed his hair and treachery his legs.

The ache lives constantly in his breastbone, knowing as he does that men like Logan and Jack have forever to love their women completely. He even envies Piotr his youth, the Russian not yet having experienced the pain of losing something as definitively as he has.

Too, he envies all of them- even his old friend, Hank- the steadfast devotion of the women they’ve given themselves to. He has no doubt that even at his worst, Logan knows Rogue will be there, solidly supporting him.

And why wouldn’t he? Charles’ mind asks bitterly. Victoria taught the younger women well. But… there was no one to help him teach Raven that she needed to hide for her own safety, not from harm, but his lust.

Folding his hands, uncomfortably aware of how confining his wheelchair is, Charles goes about his business, agrees readily when Victoria requests the grounds of Xavier’s for the ‘mating’ ceremony and festivities of Logan and Rogue. With a wink, the feline mutant promises it will edify without scarring anyone- mostly, she teases.

And then the video crew comes in, taping interviews with the ferals and those in their hierarchy. Rogue proudly tells a few tales of her time with them, Kitty (she goes by Katya now, but he forgets, sometimes) beams when asked how it was to train under the ‘legendary’ Scheherazade.

Finally, Midsummer rolls around, and at just before noon, Victoria has herded them all into place. In center, stands Logan (clad only in battered jeans), his sister and her family. Except for Rogue and her attendants, every attendee stands waiting.

Then the bell chimes. Once, twice, three times. A path clears, to reveal Rogue, pretty in a strapless green maxidress, flanked by Katya in a blue halter maxi and Piotr, attired as are Jack, Logan and Jackson- in simple, worn but clean pants- they walk with the young woman, grinning at each other when they step back, exchanging secretive smiles with the Commandoes and Wildcats.

Rogue steps up to Logan, no bouquet in her hands, instead a fine golden chain with tag is tangled in her left hand, and he pulls his hands out of his pockets to reveal an older set in silver in his own left hand.
Lifting their hands, they touch palms, communicating with their eyes. Victoria grins herself, proclaiming

“James Logan Howlett, speak now your vow to your mate!”

Ignoring the gasps at his full name, projecting his voice so everyone can hear, he begins

“Marie, darling. This, us, began so long ago, and that you still stand beside me damn near has me on my knees thanking the lord.” He sucks in a breath through his teeth, and says the words of binding, his own vow finally ready

“Anna Marie D’Ancanto, I do take you as my mate. For you, I will do all I must. Nothing will part us. I will only ever leave your side should you command it and I can persuade you differently. By the gods, Marie, so mote it be.”

Tears in Rogue- Marie’s eyes. She needs no prompting to begin

“Oh, Logan. Since the day we met, I’ve loved you. I do take you, James Logan Howlett, as my mate, mine to claim, mine to care for. I won’t leave you, I won’t order you from me. So mote it be.”

They kiss, briefly, before turning expectantly to Victoria and Jack. The man slung an arm around his mate and drawled

“As the eldest mated pair in the pack, we recognize your union.” Victoria piped up

“And now, you may exchange your marks and favours.”

THAT was when the witnesses learned WHY Logan was shirtless. Marie bit his neck, depositing the chain in her left hand into his right, arching her neck when he repeated the process. They kissed again, interrupted by Jackson clapping his hands in a quick pattern and declaring

“Let’s hear it for Marie and Logan Howlett, mated pair!”

Stunned, Xavier met Jean’s eyes and noted that she reflect the same emotions he did. Wistful envy. She had lost Scott only the year before, when, disillusioned and disheartened, he’d gone to train with Jack and
Victoria, and was now reportedly courting a woman who appreciated him. Jean had seen sense of course, but still, that she’d been blind long enough for Scott to
slip away….

Her bed remained cold. Sometimes by choice, sometimes because she couldn’t find anyone to warm it.

His didn’t remain cold. But he had Raven, and he was terrified she’d realize she’d come home to half a man and leave again. After he’d left Moira for Raven, his pride didn’t like the idea of crawling back to the intellectual.

With a sigh, Charles went to turn back to the house, when Raven came up behind him and started pushing his chair. She gently tapped his temple, the signal they’d created so he could communicate with her telepathically without intruding.

‘Raven?’

‘Victoria told me that ferals tend to get raunchy. So, I was hoping…’

‘Raven?’

‘I want you to hold me, Charles. Since this is a feral event, and you aren’t hosting, can I sit in your lap instead?’

Emotion surged through him, carefully kept from Raven, He answered softly

‘You may do anything you like, Raven. I never could deny you.’

She smiles, lighting up his world even as his chest constricts. Perhaps he had sex with Moira, but Raven’s held his heart in her hands since he was just a boy. And it kills him that he can’t make love to her properly.

Later that evening, after sitting through dinner, Charles is treated to the sight of his Raven dressing up, wearing a yellow gown that sets off her eyes.
He is further treated to the sight of Kitty (Katya, he reminds himself) perched in Piotr’s lap in a light, metallic grey gown. Victoria is similarly perched in her mate’s lap, decked out in gunmetal grey, both the men in black on black suits with ties that match their women’s gowns.

Logan and Rogue to, are dressed in much the same fashion, though they wear a deep gold that sets off Rogue’s dark eyes quite nicely. Scott, who has apparently been here all day is beside a woman wearing aqua, his tie reflecting her dress.

It doesn’t take long to realize that only Jack and Logan wear precisely the same shade as their mates. Scott and Piotr both wear darker ties, and later he learns they have committed but not had a ceremony. It is much the same for Daniel Rand and Remy Lebeau.

The more he learns, the more the hurt pulls and twists at his insides.

Mating is forever. When your mate swears their vow to you, they mean it.

Part of him wonders, what would have been different, if he had mated Raven a lifetime ago.

Rogue and Logan smile and congratulate Katya and Piotr when they decide that next year, they will do this themselves.

Only Rogue notices that Raven (no longer Mystique, the students call her ‘Mom’ these days) is melancholy.
Logan notices the same in Charles. They agree to do something about this.

Only, they never get the chance. Charles dies, and Raven is left grieving. They and all the others grieve with her, of course. But in the time she was there (the time she’s been home) the students call her Mom, Momma and even Madre because she isn’t their teacher. She’s the Professor’s beloved (sister, wife, friend- whatever you call it, the kids are not dumb) and when he was worn down, it was Raven who made him smile.

They are her children now, in a way. The very youngest ones tend to cling to her legs, tiny little Sarah Forrester sits in her lap for the service. As Charles had asked, Raven does not wear black. She wears white, her shoulders warmed by the blue and white Mexican lap blanket that a student had sent Charles years ago.

Rogue sits through the funeral huddled in Logan’s lap, clutching at his hands. Moira is there, too, and her feelings are turbulent enough to draw Jean from her own grief.

Because Moira is jealous of Raven. She was with Charles longer, fucked him until he came, but it is to Raven, once their enemy, whom the children flock to. Even Scott had embraced Raven and affectionately called her the school’s First Lady. Logan and Rogue and even Victoria’s family respect the intimacy of Raven’s bond to Charles, but they nearly dismissed Moira.

Jean exits, and intercepts Moira from confronting Raven. With his death, by feral law, Charles has left the welfare of his mate in the hands of the school. So it is her duty to her mentor to protect Raven from even this.

Raven kneels in front of the headstone, a letter in her grip, the blanket still tight around her shoulders.

Sarah had been gently pulled away by a sympathetic Logan so Raven could have her moment to grieve. She sat, in reality, for hours.

Charles Xavier, reborn into the body of a thirty-five year old, stood by to hear what she had to say, and was so floored, that if Logan and Jack hadn’t been there to catch him, he’d have fallen to his knees.

As it is, when Katya and Piotr, and Raven and Charles and many others announce their intention to bond using the feral ceremony, it does not surprise Rogue. No, she foresaw this the day Victoria told her, Katya and the other Wildcats about her own ceremony, many more years ago than even Charles can remember.

Happy as she is for her friends, Marie Scheherazade Howlett has a mate now. When someone asks her what it means to be a Scheherazade, to be mated to the man known as the Prime Feral, she asks them to listen to a song. When they do, and if they’ve focused on the lyrics, they finally get it.

Logan knows himself. He must, if he is to fight well. Knows what his mate means to him. So when he gets his hands on the lyrics of that song, it melts his heart- though he won’t show it.
Chapter End Notes:
The song mentioned is supposed to be Beth Crowley’s Warrior. There is a particular line I’ll quote:

“You're my mortal flaw
And I'm your fatal sin”

Obviously, this is Rogue to Logan, but thought I’d make it crystal clear. Thoughts?

P.S. Really sorry to people looking forward to Magister II. But I’ll still explore how Rogue got control (in detail), I promise!
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