Title: Iktsuarpok
Fandom: X-Men
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: RoLo (Ororo/Logan)
Rating: Soft R/M
Summary: Though a Queen, Ororo still feels like a novice in some ways.
Word Count: 1440
Written For: Fan FlashWorks 378: Words from Other Languages (Iktsaurpok, Dauwtrappen) and 1 Million Words A to Z: Q (Queen) and W (Wolverine)
Warnings: Post Fatal Attractions
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.









There was a strange feeling flowing through her blood as she walked through the dew-kissed grass early that morning. It was a trek she often made to greet the sun, and though she pretended not to know it, she knew there were several men who had watched her on her dauwtrappen sigil. She had never allowed nudity to bother her, though. She had not been raised that way, unlike the Americans and, it would seem, even the Germans. She was aware of Remy on the roof, Nathan's mind gently scanning over hers, Warren somewhere in the sky above her, and even Charles sitting in his office. She was also, far more importantly, aware of the lone man who skulked through the woods.

His mind was there; she had used both Nathan and Jean's abilities to confirm it. Logan was still there. He was just so vastly wounded this time that he had all but given up. Indeed, if he could force the air to leave his lungs, she was quite certain he would have surrendered long ago. She'd tried so hard to reach him, but she couldn't. It was going to take another, and she thought she knew exactly who it was who could reach him, especially since both she and Kitten could not.

Goddess, how she missed that man! He was far more than just an ally. She relied on him for much more than the fierce warrior for which most of the others missed him. She missed their conversations and even just his gentle presence. Even when he had been too far, whenever she had needed him, he had reached her eventually. He had been the first to truly reach her, and she him, many years ago when they first came to this land.

She held her head high and regal as the Queen she knew herself to be as she dropped her cape to the ground. Her time amongst the Americans, amongst "civilized" peoples, had not made her ashamed of her body, and if they chose to watch this moment, that was on them. There was little she could do about it. They might be free to gaze what did not belong to them, but she still needed to be free, and she would be free, to act as she felt the Goddess calling her to do.

She lifted her head as the birds' songs increased. She lifted her body as the morning sun's golden rays kissed her dark and ample flesh. She might feel old, especially after their most recent battles, but she was not. She was only as old or as young as the Goddess intended her to be, and there was still much she had to experience in life. Much that she wanted to experience in life with a certain someone beside her.

Her breezes lilted over the grounds, and it was because of them that she knew exactly who was watching, and who was not. Logan had not quite caught sight of her, but he sensed something happened. His hairs were standing on end as he lunged from his hiding spot, trying to get a better look at whatever had caught the attention of the other wild animals around him. She turned toward the spot she knew him to be hiding and forced herself to smile though tears glistened in her blue eyes.

She wished she could invite him to take this flight with her. She should have advanced on him long ago, when she'd first realized she was falling in love with him, but she did not want to destroy their friendship and broken romances tended to have a fatal impact on even the deepest of friendships. She would rather have the brave, fierce, and honorable man beside her as a friend than to not have him in her life at all. Even this, unable to talk to him, unable to touch him, but knowing he was there was better than nothing.

As her eyes turned to the very spot where she knew he was standing beyond the trees, her mind flashed back to another time on these very same grounds. She had managed to whisk him away from the others for a quiet picnic in the woods. She abhorred the taste of beer, but she was willing to tolerate it to spend time with him. She was willing to tolerate almost anything to spend time, especially quality time, with him.

So she had delicately sipped her beer while he had guzzled his, and before long, he had actually started opening up to her. His eyes had gotten an almost glossy look to them as he had thought back to Canada. The wild, snowy territories up North might not actually be his homeland, but they had been, at least at that time, more of a home than anywhere else he had known. Ororo wondered, if Logan could speak, if he would still say he considered Canada to be his home, or if he had finally actually come to consider this place his home as she had. Such a thought had seemed impossible back then, but so much had changed since then.

So much had changed. Yet so much, too, had stayed the same. She still adored the man, perhaps now more than ever before, while he still had eyes for her best friend. Although, right now, she noted with a big smile, he was actually looking at her. He was staring back at her from above the bushes, and her breezes confirmed that he solidly liked what he saw. She wished she could bid him to come to her, but she knew such would be futile.

"Iktsuarpok," he had said at another time when she'd been hurt, bleeding, and almost dead. He very nearly hadn't made it back to her in time, and he'd been outraged at himself for having left her where she could be attacked. She had actually thought then that he might come to love her. Such was the foolish, trivial thoughts of besotted youth, she thought with a forlorn sigh. Such, too, were the notions that one had to be loved in return in order to love, or that one could shut off unrequited love. That had never worked with her and Logan, no matter how hard she had tried.

The word he had whispered then, his sultry voice on the edge of an angry growl, the anger mostly aimed at himself, had meant the anticipation of waiting for a loved one. Ororo felt like she had been waiting forever -- perhaps not forever, but certainly for many, many more years than she had even been alive. She had waited so very long, and she had told herself many times over that she would wait no more. After all, she was a Queen. She was more than a Queen; she had been revered as a Goddess!

But she knew now that she had always been lying to herself. She would wait for Logan. She would wait for him even to her very death if that was what it took. The man had stolen her heart, and she could not redeem it back. She could not manage to free herself of the effects he took on her no matter what she did, and to be honest, she was no longer willing to try.

Her breezes were growing into a more solid wind as they unconsciously tugged on him. Her long, ivory hair flew around her bare shoulders. She wished she could pull him to her, pull him back to her even as a friend if nothing more. She could not make him love. She'd tried. She'd asked the Goddess yearningly to grant him to her. But Logan was the freest man she had ever known. He would only love her if, and when, he wanted to.

Her breath caught suddenly for he was coming to her. His eyes had not moved from hers, and he was slowly, stealthily beginning to approach her. Her hormones raged, however, for even she could still be a slave to her emotions. Thunder rumbled, and it snapped Logan back to alert, and back to fear. He turned and ran, and Ororo sighed again as a gentle rain began to fall, shielding her tears.

She would wait. Jubilee was set to arrive tomorrow. Goddess willing, she'd be able to pull him back to himself. Even if she couldn't, though, Ororo knew she would keep waiting and keep trying, no matter how futile it seemed. Goddess willing, she'd keep waiting forever or, at least, until Logan did decide, miraculously, to love him back in return.




The End