Disclaimer: Characters belong to Marvel Comics, not the author, and are being used for non-profit entertainment purposes only. The story belongs to Alara.

I think it should be obvious who these people are, but let me know if I'm being confusing. I'm trying to go for a poetic feel here.

The wind and the rain have spoken to me. I call, and ask of them the news, and they whisper to me. Like a mantra underlying all my thoughts, the patter of the rain, the whistling of the wind, and the whisper within them, telling me their news, again and again.

You will leave me.

Perhaps I was a fool to think it could be otherwise. For I have stood at this crossroads before, have seen a man turn from me and run away for fear I would turn first, flinch first, run away. He ran rather than let me run, rather than hear what I would say, rather than hear that I might stay.

I have stood and watched a man turn from me before, and so I know what you will do, what you will choose.

You will leave me.

For you have stood at this crossroads before, have watched a woman turn and run. Kneedeep in blood with the blood on your hands, you called to your love to help you, save you, pull you free. And she cried in fear of you, and ran down the path, and all your turns to try to find her led you further down the path of blood. And so you fear a woman running, and so you will run first. You told me so a lifetime ago, when both of us had other loves. You did not use those words, but I know you, and I know what you will choose.

You will leave me.

You will turn down the path of blood, the path where you stand, and run from me.

***

The wind and the rain bring smells to me, the smell of blood and ozone. They bring sounds to me, the screams of the dead and the damned. And I know what you have done.

For you have stood at that crossroads before, ahead of you the shining path of light and the darkened path of blood. And you have walked the path of blood, waded in it so deep it soaked you to the skin, coated you and clung to you and made you a suit of armor, untouchable behind iron and blood. It charged you, magnetized you, a polar pull that calls you back to the path like a spinning compass. Whenever you turn, whenever you try to walk the path of light, you lose your way in the blinding glow and then the pull has you, the iron in the blood calls you, as if what you master masters you.

You have never been willing to accept help in finding your way out.

You have never been willing to accept how easily you can lose your way, or that you are lost when you do.

The path of blood calls you, and you think it is your destiny.

As the path away from me, from love, is your destiny.

As a man running, running down the path away from me, for fear of me running the other way, is my destiny.

***

The wind and the rain speak to me with the voice of the Goddess, and she speaks of life and death.

She speaks of six thousand dead in China, where mutant infants have been systematically abandoned, tortured, or brainwashed by the government.

She speaks of the righteous rage that would protect life instead consuming it in magnetic fire.

She speaks of the life within me, the life we have created on the path we walked together.

I see our future shattered on the pathway ahead. I see the vision of the running man that has haunted me for years, since the Maker made his path away from mine. I see your vision of the running woman, and the fear that drives you to run first. I see the path of blood pulling on you, tugging you in, and perhaps no one will pull you free this time. Perhaps you will run away from life and love, toward blood and death, so deep that there can be no redemption.

And the new life we have made will be tainted forever by the loss of a father, the loss of a father's soul.

***

The wind and the rain have told me the news, but they cannot tell me the future. The past tells me the future, and I reject it. I reject it.

I will not let the past rule me, as you have for years let the past rule you.

I come to the crossroads and stand before you, and I offer you a choice, my love, father of my child.

Come free. Pull yourself from the path of blood and walk again with me. Let me help you, let me be your anchor, as I once promised and failed you. I will not fail you again, for we will be bound together, you and me, and I will not let you lose your way.

Walk with me, and help me to carry our child along the path, as I will help you to stay within the light.

Or turn from me, in fear, and flee deeper down the path of blood, and condemn yourself again to life without love, life serving death.

You stand at the crossroads, and the past is pushing you, the blood is calling you. But you can still turn away. If you are strong enough to master the pull, to fight the past, you can turn away. If you are strong enough to be a man, and not merely a toy of circumstances, you can turn away.

I bring you the news of the life within me, to call you, to remind you that you are a man with responsibilities, and not a Messiah of blood and death. You have done a terrible thing, but I have seen the babies' mutilated bodies and I know what enraged you, and I can still forgive. You can still choose.

Will you walk with me, my love? Will you turn from the path of blood?

Or will you leave me?