The universe: Standard XME.
Kurt is: 13, at home, with all the powers he has at the time of "Strategy X".
The missing pieces: If I ever write the Kurt-history bouncing around in my brain, this will be one of the chapters. Previously, Kurt was kidnapped by Amos Jardine, spent some time in a freak-show, toured Europe by night, had a bad relationship with a girl, and returned home to find out that Jimaine didn't remember him. In later chapters, he'll receive an invitation to the mysterious Xavier Institute for the Gifted, and the rest is history.
*****
The first time he saw it, it was in the kitchen.
As soon as he entered, he knew something wasn't quite right. An almost imperceptible twinge in his spatial senses, an odd shadow in the corner of his eye, a slight shift in the room's air currents.
He looked for the source of the imbalance, and identified it as a tail sticking out of the cookie jar.
It was his tail. Except that it wasn't.
"Oh, you found it," Stefan said, coming up behind him and following his gaze.
"What *is* it?" Kurt asked.
"Jimaine made it," the younger boy pulled the thing from its resting place, letting the ceramic lid fall back with a {chink}.
Kurt stared in horror. It was a fairly accurate knitted representation of his tail, with one disturbing exception. At the point where it should have joined his body, it simply ended, as though it had been cut off.
"Isn't it cool?" Stefan twisted the thing through his hands. "I'm going to go put it somewhere else."
After that, it was a game. Stefan and Jimaine took turns leaving the tail in a creative location, and giggling as the other tried to find it. When they did, a new round began.
That afternoon, Kurt spotted the abomination hanging from the roof, peeking out from beneath a rug, and halfway down the toilet. He carefully ignored each appearance.
*****
"Kurti?" Herr Szardos looked at the small side table drawer. "What are you doing in there?"
No response.
"Kurt?" he softly touched his son's tail.
Still no response. He wasn't even moving.
"Hi Papa," said Kurt's voice from behind him.
Herr Szardos jumped and turned around. "If you're there," he said slowly, "then what's this?"
"Today's entertainment," Kurt said coldly.
He gently removed the tail from the drawer. Kurt looked away. He laid it across a chair and looked at his son with a raised eyebrow. Kurt crossed his arms, wrapped his tail around his leg, and stared determinedly at a wall.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No."
There was a long pause.
"I hate it!" Kurt burst out. "It's disgusting! There's a fake *body part* in the house!"
"Then let's get rid of it," Herr Szardos suggested.
"It's a *tail*," Kurt whispered. "Not garbage."
"Should we bury it?"
Kurt shifted uncomfortably. "Just...just put it away somewhere."
Herr Szardos took the tail and hid it in the back of his closet. This brought complaints from Stefan and Jimaine.
Well, you can't please everybody.
*****
It was a beautiful Indian summer day. It seemed the sort of day on which children should be running, laughing, and playing games. Indeed, many were.
Stefan Szardos was not among them. He was too busy missing yesterday's fun.
His brother was lying beside him, staring unblinking into the blue depths of the sky. His sister was playing quietly in the shade of the house.
"I'm bored," Stefan announced.
"Go play tag," Kurt said.
He looked over to where the other kids were shrieking and chasing each other. "I don't have that kind of energy," he said.
"Then watch the clouds."
Stefan squinted at the single tiny cloud floating high in the sky. "It's too bright."
"Picky."
The younger boy fidgeted idly with a blade of grass. "Teleport me," he said after a while.
Most people were violently ill after teleporting. Stefan, on the other hand, happened to enjoy it.
"You think *I* have that kind of energy?" Kurt said.
"You always do," Stefan pointed out.
"I don't feel like it now."
"I know where Papa hid the tail."
"You do know you're a pest, right?"
"No I'm not."
"Yes you are."
Stefan stuck out his tongue. Kurt rolled his eyes and let his right arm flop onto the grass. Stefan took his hand.
*bamf*
"More."
*bamf*
"More!"
*bamf*
*bamf*
*bamf*
*bamf*
"That's enough," Kurt was breathing hard, even though he'd only gone a few feet on each 'port. He was completely exhausted.
"One more," Stefan wheedled.
"No."
"Just one?"
"Absolutely not."
"I'm getting the tail."
"Fine. *One* more. Then you leave me alone."
"Fine."
*bamf*
Kurt didn't even bother to open his eyes this time. "That's your one more," he said. "Now go away."
Stefan didn't answer.
"I'm not doing it again," Kurt was beginning to get seriously annoyed. "Let go of me."
The pressure on his hand remained constant.
"I mean it!" he said, opening his eyes. "Get-"
He stopped, his mouth hanging open. Stefan was face down next to him, not moving at all. Kurt wrenched his hand free and rolled his brother over.
He wasn't breathing. He had no pulse.
The otherwordly howl of anguish brought Margali running from the kitchen, a dishtowel draped over her shoulder.
"Do something!" Kurt screamed hysterically. "Fix him!"
The sorceress dropped to her knees and felt for her biological son's vital signs. She found none. Calmly, she stood, crossed the grass, and picked up her crying daughter.
"Did you do it?" her stranger-born child asked, his voice trembling. "Is he better?"
"No," Margali said, facing the other way. "He is on the other side now."
Jimaine hiccuped.
"No..." Kurt whispered. "No! Why do I always do this?!"
"What will be, will be," Margali said. "It had to happen, so a great man could find you."
Kurt sniffled. "Who?"
She paused. "It is not for me to tell." She carried the red-faced innocent back into the house.
*****
It was the last time he would see the only place he had ever really called home; that he promised himself.
The old clock struck two in the morning. Gentle breathing came from the two bedrooms. A small wooden cross poked up from a mound of fresh dirt behind the kitchen. A ceramic cookie jar, its lid propped open, stood on the counter, half-in and half-out of a beam of moonlight.
The lost soul nodded, climbed silently out the window, and didn't look back.
*****
The master bedroom's lone window offered a daily show of the sun climbing the sky, beginning after the celestial orb managed to surmount the old-growth trees. Herr Szardos rose, stepped into his house shoes, and shuffled off in search of breakfast.
An unassuming cookie jar stood, as always, beneath the south-facing window. There was a tail sticking out of it.
Herr Szardos tipped up the lid, put his hand in, and withdrew a scrap of paper.
"I hereby quit using my powers," it read. "I am going to a place of strangers where I won't offend anyone with my face or my bad luck. Tell Jimaine stories about me, if you can remember any with happy endings."
In the bottom corner, Kurt had studiously signed his full name as he knew it.
Margali appeared, read the note over her husband's shoulder, and started a pot of coffee.
She had seen the life-paths of all her children, and made her peace with them long ago.