Krakoa had stopped growing apples. Apparently Doug told the island about the Eden story, and the whole thing felt way too close for comfort, so the island decided to stop producing those particular fruits. All the apple trees died. The next day saplings shot up in their places: cherries, pears, plums, and in sunnier, warmer spots mangoes, mamey and mamey sapote, avocado, even durian. Best of all were the feijoas, which only Doug and Mondo recognized.
“How do ye pronounce it?” Rahne asked, biting into one. Some people peel them; some people don’t.
“Feej-wa,” Doug said. “From Aotearoa.”
“New Zealand,” Illyana shouted. “Show off.”
“The people who called it that were there first,” Doug responded. “We should use both names.”
“Of course we should,” Dani chimed in, taking another bites of the chartreuse fruit flesh, halfway between pineapple and banana. Doug, she noticed, still chewed with his mouth open, eager to speak. Some things don’t change. “Originally the name just meant the North Island, though. It’s just tangata tiriti—”
“White people,” Doug said. “Sort of.”
“Sort of—anyway, just newcomers who decided the term referred to the whole country. I’ve been there. Valkyries get around, you know. Speaking of which, what’s up with that state visit?”
“Jacinda Ardern? Ororo’s handling it,” Amara said, scooping out the rind. “No better ally for mutantkind among humans these days. By the way, these feej-was look familiar.”
“They should,” Doug ansered. “They’re South American, originally: the word feijoa’s Portuguese. You can tell by the spelling.”
“No wonder. Our gardener grew them when I was a kid. But we never ate them. I guess that explains why they’re called that.”
Then Amara turned to Rahne. “Speaking of names, how did you choose yours? I was hoping as I learned more English after we met ‘Wolfsbane’ would make more sense to me. But it’s like choosing the codename ‘Self-hate.’ Or ‘The self-poisoner.’ Maybe ‘The self-underminer.’”
“Och, that would be a good codename for me sometimes, wouldna it? Truth is I simply didnae know what it meant. We were all so young.”
“What baffles me,” Illyana said, taking her skewer of venison from the bonfire, “is the codename Warlock. He arrived with the name already there, right? I mean, Doug, you spoke to him first, and you said that was already his name. Their name.”
“Self takes all pronouns now,” Doug’s arm said, resolving itself into a separate figure. Doug shrugged. The setting sun over Krakoa shone in Doug’s, and Illyana’s, and Amara’s blond hair; on Dani it sparkled, copper on black, like far-off stars. “Selffriends require selfname justification?”
“Not like you have to justify your name, ‘lock,” Doug reassured his wiry spiky friend. “Your name is your choice. But you can explain if you—if you want.That's some delicious grilled squash, Amara. Also your ankle’s on fire. Has anyone seen Logan?”
“Why?”
“I thought he'd enjoy the rebus: it's for the great Canadian singer gourd and light-foot.” Magma threw a spoonful of hot ashes at Doug’s own foot. “Seriously, ‘lock, I’ve never asked but—”
“Selffriends may ask. Warlocks are human or human-like magic agents dependent on larger agents for powers? With scarybad reputation from other dimension?”
Illyana nodded. “Sounds more like me than like you.”
“Did ye light the bonfire?” Rahne asked, withdrawing two sticks from the flame, each with a feijoa s'more affixed to the hot end. “Or was it ye?”
“I did!” Pixie chimed in. “Dani taught me. I didn’t even have to use magic. Just metal and patience.”
Rahne offered her one of the feijoa s’mores. “What about the name, though, Warlock, for real? If ye want to tell us, that is. I’ve wondered for acres of years, an’ been afeared to ask.”
“Selffriends understand selforigin fleeing badfather Magus. Selfpowers derive from Kvch culture; earthlife may fear self. Self fears self at times. Selfname indicates fears, sense that power comes from faraway, sense that self should be feared.”
“I remember how afraid you were,” Doug said, “afraid of us, when we first found you. When I first found you.” Warlock extended an electric cord, and then a hand at the end of the cord, to grasp Doug’s own, flowing up till Doug once again had a glove up to his forearm. The mutant expert in languages relaxed and smiled a bit as the glove fit.
“But Pixie,” Amara said. “What about you? Isn’t there a phrase about a manic—”
“Don’t say it,” Megan frowned. “I know I’m pink and diminutive and I blow dust at people and I’m part faerie but I’m nobody’s manic dream girl. I am my own protagonist, thank you very much. And I strike back.”
“You do. Hi everyone.” From the center of the bonfire came a magnificent column of liquid silver, striding easily out of the flames to the log where Pixie sat, and shaking off sparks as she sat down.
“Cessily!” Pixie exclaimed.
“I miss Laura,” the liquid-metal young woman replied.
“We all do. But that doesn’t mean we can’t hang out. Here, have a s’more.”
“You used to be my teacher,” Cessily said to Rahne and Dani. “That was a weird time. I wanted so much to feel like I belonged.”
“You felt like you had a chance to belong,” Illyana said, looking directly at the pair of younger mutants, one pink-haired, one silver all over. “That’s worth a lot. We…. we tried.”
But Cessily wasn’t finished. “What about you, Illyana Rasputin? How did you choose your name?”
One of the world’s most powerful sorcerers blushed. “You see… um…”
“Magic I get. But why the k?” Doug nodded: he, too, had always been afraid to ask.
“Kitty…. when Kitty… when I… when we first…”
“Go on,” said Dani, approvingly.
“When I was in Limbo,” said Illyana, haltingly, sticking her now-empty blackened skewer into the ground. “When I was in Limbo I never got sick—except emotionally. There weren’t… germs there. Just demons and ambient evil. But.”
“But?” Amara really wanted to know.
“We didn’t have modern hygiene there either. Just pieces of wood and, like, fiber to clean your teeth. My breath was so bad when I got back. So bad. You have no idea.”
“I have some idea,” Amara began, before Doug motioned her to shut up.
“So when I got back… when I got back… and got settled…and moved in with Kitty… the most important… the most important thing I learned was that Kitty… that Kate… well, you know.” She shook her bangs out. “But the second… well, in the bathroom… she had a Water-Pik. You know. A Water-Pik.”
Rahne nodded. Doug and Dani nodded too.
“And my teeth were clean, really clean, for the first time in my life. I felt like my magic would be different in this new cleaner world that had been given back to me. That I fought my way back to find. I had to honor that experience. It wasn’t just magic. I wasn’t just Magic. I was Magik. Like the Water-Pik. With teeth.”
The mutants sat facing the fire, saying nothing for a few minutes at least, as it sputtered out.
“You sure know how to pick them,” Doug said, before Amara threw hot ashes at his other foot.
“Megan?” Illyana asked.
“Beth?”
“Who?”
“Sorry. That’s Welsh for what?”
“What?”
“Ie?”
“What?”
“No, ie means yes and beth means what.”
“Who’s Beth?”
“Forget it,” said Pixie. “I’m just glad we get along now. Shall we go home?”
“Your turn,” Illyana answered.
“OK. Sihal Novarum Chinoth!”
And with that, the mutants gone, the fire’s ashes sputtered out on their own.