Logs:Maker's Mark

Maker's Mark
Dramatis Personae Charles, Polaris
In Absentia	2022-04-07 "Do you actually call him 'Magneto'?"
Location <XS> Xavier's Study - Third Floor
Charles Xavier's apartment has remained more or less unchanged through the decades of renovation that transformed his family's huge ancestral manse into a school. It is modest by the standards of the wealthy, but then it had only been meant to house him in his youth. The receiving room just inside the door is sumptuous with old world aristocratic splendor from the intricate Persian rug underfoot and the furniture in purple and gold to the gold-framed paintings on the walls. Double doors in each of the walls lead to a large bedroom, a moderately sized dining room with its own kitchen and pantry, and a small study. The reading room tucked into the corner of the suite is much smaller than the one in the mansion's library proper, cozily appointed polished dark wood and plush burgundy upholstery. The walls are lined with floor-to-ceiling mobile bookshelves, including a climate controlled case beside the antique writing desk. A sideboard by the door holds a silver platter with a crystal decanter of scotch and two old fashioned glasses, a pitcher of water, a crystal bowl of peppermint starlights, and a rather space age looking coffee machine(?) beside a fine white porcelain tea set at the far end. There is small table with an elegant metallic chess set in a bright nook beneath one of the windows, flanked by a single chair. Xavier propels his chair -- this one manual, lightweight and minimalist, the spokes of its rear wheels forming large X's -- through the wide doorway into his study and flips a low-mounted switch on the wall. Warm, recessed strip lighting cleverly worked into the crown molding fades on. "Please have a seat, if you like," he tells his guest, deftly pivoting his chair out of the way and next to the sideboard. "Might I get you something to drink? I've a wide range here, and an even wider one down in the kitchen. Only, I don't know if you have got any -- restrictions." Polaris had walked alongside her host through the wide hallways outside, but trails him now as she studies the paintings in the sitting room << (parlor?) (salon?) >> with interest. She's in her work attire, a black canvas motorcycle jacket replete with steel hardware, a black fitted tee shirt adorned with a silver Tree of Gondor, black jeans, and heavy black boots also liberally festooned with steel. When she does follow him in her eyebrows raise up high. << This place is a fucking castle, how is his study so small? >> "Thanks." She does not sit, still making a slow curious circuit of the room, though she does glance back at him at the question. "I'm actually a terrible Mormon. << Is it less terrible cuz I'm not baptized wait how does he evenknow >> So uh...coffee? Tea? Whatever caffeine you like, I'm not picky." "Earl Grey it is, then." Xavier opens a cabinet beneath his coffee machine and pulls out a tin. "It's really quite simple: I observed you wore a ring of religious significance and kept relevant scriptures at your hospital bedside which was clearly much studied." He quirks a faint sardonic smile over his shoulder at her before returning to his tea prep. "Also, I follow you on Twitter. Now, why do you suppose I would want a larger study? I've a rather extensive library downstairs." Polaris blushes, but when she snickers it's in sincere bemusement. "Right, yeah, I knew that." << Tea, Earl Grey, hot. He probably gets that all the fucking time. >> She drifts over to one of the bookshelves, canting her head slightly to one side as she browses. "I don't know, cuz you own the wholeass place and could literally have as big a study as you wanted..." Her brows furrow as he trails off. << Guess he just--doesn't want a bigger study? >> She shakes her head and returns her attention to the bookshelves, tilting her head back as she looks up, up, up. "Uh...I'm sorry if this is rude but like. How do you get the books on top?" << ...or even in the middle does he just have servants for that sorry um... >> Her blush deepens as she shunts that line of thought somewhat clumsily aside. "Just so. I wanted to dedicate as much space as I could to the school, and I don't need a large study for just myself." Xavier fills the teapot with hot water from the coffee machine. "I get it less and less as the years wear on. I still find it flattering to be compared with Sir Patrick, who I assure you is far more charming and interesting than myself." He sets the tea aside to steep and swivels his chair around to follow Polaris's line of sight, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I don't find it rude, though I will say most people don't ask that aloud, at least not so soon." He rolls over to the bookcase she's investigating and reaches out to tap a button on its left leg, about eye level for him. A faint whirring noise issues from behind the case and its top shelf recedes to leave a vacancy that the shelves below rise to fill. A moment later, the top shelf emerges neatly to fill the space left by the others at eye level. "I do like showing it off." Able to sense the hidden mechanisms as they come to life, Polaris is gaping even before the shelves start to move. "Holy crap that is so cool! I had no idea stuff like this even existed." << Dude can read my mind and here I am losing it over his bookcase. >> She tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear and continues her orbit of the room. "So. How did you meet my--Suzanna and Magneto?" She arches one eyebrow at him. "Do you actually call him 'Magneto'?" << And why does he have such a goofy-ass name? >> "It isn't common, I'm afraid." Xavier taps another button on the slim control panel and the shelves return to their previous arrangement. "At least not in the States. I am working on that." He watches her for a moment, his expression unreadable. << Less than you might think. >> It is instantly and inexplicably clear to Polaris that he means reading her mind. << When I'm out and about it's a safety issue, but here I'd go mad if I didn't I drown most of it in static. Harder, admittedly, when actively conversing. >> "It depends on the context, but for the most part I call him Erik." He attaches the specialized tray to a hard point on his chair and brings the tea service to the chess table. "We met in 1975, either by chance or by destiny, depending on your inclination. We were each at the ends of our respective ropes -- I was ecstatic to have found another mutant, but he mostly wanted to get back to hunting Nazis, so..." He breaks into a fond but rueful smile, wheels over to the climate controlled bookcase and takes out two thick photo albums. "I joined him. Suzanna was...much later." Polaris turns a sharp glance at Xavier, anger flaring bright in her mind and written plainly on her face. "So at the hospital, you could have blocked it out but you just--didn't?" As soon as the words are out, though, she's reconsidering. << Not that different from Taylor (it's totally different) (is it?) >> She takes a deep breath and lets it back out, then drops into the chair beside the chess table. << Can you hear me now? >> Though there is still a note of accusation in this as she pitches her mental voice deliberately to be heard, there is reluctant curiosity, too. The tea helps calm her, and she starts to examine the unusual magnetic signature of the chess set, but then looks back up at him, eyes wide with astonishment. "Wait, did you say hunting Nazis?" Xavier inclines his head. "Reductionist, but essentially correct. I do not make those choices frivolously, and I suspect if I'd been guarding you then, you'd have wanted me to listen." << I can hear you now, yes. I might not under other circumstances. It really is a matter of noise and attention -- I can't just flip a switch. >> He parks his chair catty-corner to Polaris's and flips open one of the leather-bound albums in his lap. "Your fa -- Erik lost his entire family in the Holocaust, and he'd been hunting one particular Nazi scientist for years by the time we met. After he'd gotten his vengeance, we started searching for others of our kind." His eyes linger on a polaroid of a young Magneto glaring daggers at someone who looks completely identical to him, from stark white hair to black turtleneck, though this Magneto wears a mischievous grin. "Raven was the first of many." His tone is soft and wistful. Polaris frowns, but casts back to the pain and fear of those days in the hospital, her rotating cast of protectors. Even with all the turns and tangents of her disordered thoughts, she winds up unsurprisingly at a certain other telepath. The memory of Hive slumped listless and surly in a bedside chair brings a flush of longing that she reflexively quashes. << Turn it off, turn it off, like a light switch >> her mind sings, bright and frenetic. She's glad of the distraction the photos offer, her attention riveted momentarily on the one Xavier indicates. << Metamorph! Probably the smiling one. (he looks so young) (was his hair always white is it hereditary) (don't care don't care don't care) >> Not altogether consciously, she twirls a lock of green hair around her index finger. What she finally does say out loud is, "He must have been really young, during the Shoah, I mean..." She gestures vaguely at the picture. "How old is he?" Xavier glances aside at Polaris when she winds her hair around her finger. "He's almost 50 in this photograph. Anecdotally, mutants tend towards longevity." His lips compress. "Those of us who get the chance to grow old." There's a slightly tilted photo on the next page that shows two people in white lab coats poring over a long ribbon of paper from a dot matrix printer. "You might not recognize me for the hair, but that's me and and Moira MacTaggert." His hand hesitates on the stiff edge of the next page. "Ah, yes, I had meant to show you Suzanna." He closes the first album and shuffles it beneath the other, which he opens to flip past some photos of Erik at work in his forge and some odd interior shots of machinery onto a group portrait centered on Xavier (in a wheelchair now, and not yet entirely bald), Magneto, and a very young, very bright-eyed Suzanna Dane. "We met her through Genetic Equality. She was one of our most dedicated and radical human allies, and ended up being instrumental to the early days of the Mutant Liberation Front." "Whaaaat?" Polaris blinks at the photo, then at Xavier. << Shit, how old is he? >> She tries to estimate the age of the man beside Moira MacTaggert, but all she can come up with is << 20s? 30s?! But Magneto looked kinda like that when he was 50! >> She's quickly sidetracked by the newer (better quality!) photos. << Magnet Dad (not my dad not my dad) was ripped. Wow mom looks actually young (she was banging a dude twice her age) >> "Still hard to believe she was ever that radical. Guess she sold out with a vengeance." There's no real animosity here, just a weary disappointment. She looks back at a photo of Magneto at his anvil, opposite the group shot. "Wait, backup, Magneto was a blacksmith?" This thought pleases her, and suddenly her attention snaps back to the chess set. She riffles their magnetic fields. "Shit. He made this, didn't he?" Wrapping her own bioelectric field around the black knight, she lifts it effortless and rotates it in the air. "They felt...different. But similar to one another. The black and white pieces feel distinct, too." She gives a breathy laugh, inordinately excited. "He must have made this." Xavier blinks, visibly suppressing a smile. "I'm 71," he says abstractly, "but, pursuant to the anecdotal observation earlier, rather well-preserved." He flips back to a photo of Erik -- bare to the waist, sheened with sweat -- with a literal sword that he has just quenched and which would eventually end up on the wall of the mansion's great hall. "I thought him the finest metalworker on earth, though I admit I do not meet a wide range. He did, however, make that." He lets the smile break through when Polaris lifts the chessman. "Your power is...stunningly similar to his. Do you mind, if I...?" He gestures at his own temple with his index and middle fingers, then at Polaris. "I'd like to show you something." At her dubious nod of assent he reaches out in a swell of comforting warmth and deftly takes hold of just her magnetic sense, bending it toward one specific aspect of the dark metallic knight she holds suspended. << See this? >> He draws her attention along the lines of a strange, graceful field, then to an identical field around a white rook, and a black pawn. << That's the signature left by his power, an imprint of his own field -- like a maker's mark that only a few can see. >> He withdraws from her mind, the warmth fading slow and gentle. "He made it," is his belated confirmation, soft and wistful. Polaris flinches from the unfamiliar telepathic contact at first, but is too curious about what she's being shown to not lean into it. << That's amazing! Oh my God I leave a signature too I just never thought about it who else was gonna see >> But it's still the intricate black knight that she's turning over and over, even after Xavier withdraws. "I've been taking some metalworking classes, but it'll be a long time before I can do anything like this." << (he could teach me) (he'll never get out) (we got out) >> She finally sets the piece back down, photo album all but forgotten as she casts around the room with her magnetic sense, then beyond. "He made a lot of stuff!" Her eyes snap back to Xavier suddenly, fixed on his chest. << Wait what >> "Uh. So. When you said you were close, did you mean..." Xavier's indulgent smile fades. His hand lifts to the spot on his sternum at which Polaris is staring, but ultimately redirects to primly adjusting his tie. "We were married, but..." He shakes his head. "That was a long time ago." He sets the albums down and contemplates the writing desk for a moment before wheeling over, rooting through a drawer until he comes out with a steel link bracelet -- wide, like a watchband, bearing the same magnetic signature as the chess set and the ring under his shirt. "Erik didn't go in much for jewelry, but he liked having steel ready to hand." His eyes flick over Polaris's wire rings, her steel-studded outfit. "I know you don't see him as your father, and that is entirely reasonable. But I will help you figure out who he could be to you, should that prove of interest." He returns to the chess table and holds the bracelet out, simple and polished and conspicuously lacking a latch. "If it isn't too presumptuous, I'd like you to have this." Polaris just stares at him, the rapid churn of her thoughts grinding briefly to a halt. Then, quiet, awed, "He's queer. The Master of fucking Magnetism is queer." << Why am I even surprised that outfit is not heterosexual (oh God now I kinda want him to be my dad) (that's dumb as shit Lorna) wait was mom a homewrecker?! >> Her eyes follow her host across the room, and she knows what's in his hand before he shows her. "He's not my father." This is immediate and defensive, though she then concedes, "I do have half of his genes, and his powers. But I don't need him to be anything to me. It's just like, I only ever saw Magneto on TV and I'm...curious. About Erik Lensherr." She looks down at the proffered bracelet, and does not reach for it, but it lifts from Xavier's palm and floats in the air between them. It's much, much too big for her wrist. "Thank you." She rotates the bracelet slowly, her powers feeling out the layers of steel that make up each polished link, rolled impossibly tight, with integral pins that lock inside adjoining links where no tools can reach. "This is so cool! Man, I thought my wire weaving was impressive." << I mean, dude's only had like a thousand more years to practice. >> "Kinda weird to have a memento for someone I don't even know." Notwithstanding, she's lowering the bracelet to drop it into her own hand, then tucking it into a pocket. << Someone I'll never know... >> There's an abrupt sense of loss here, almost immediately drowned out by anger simmering low and dangerous. "So...what is this? He's your ex so you feel responsible for me?" Xavier lapses back into a smile, only slightly rueful. "He didn't like putting labels to it, but yes." He finally picks up his tea, as well. "Well, half of your genes came from him, yes, but owing to the process of 'crossing over' during meiosis..." He rubs at the bridge of his nose. "You probably weren't looking for a genetics lecture, and I'm sure you know that DNA is not destiny. It's not nothing, either." He sets his cup back down and studies Polaris. "I don't feel responsible for you, per se, and I certainly don't think you incapable." Here he hesitates, his eyes sliding over to the chessboard. "On a selfish level, you remind me of him, plain and simple. And through that you also remind me the ways I've been falling short as an elder." He steeples his hands, head tilting minutely. "Erik wasn't there for you, but I'm sure he would want to be now, if only he could. He can't, but I can, and I've a lot of resources at my disposal." Polaris rolls her eyes, though she agrees readily enough with, "It's not nothing. But neither is abandoning me to be raised by flatscans who didn't want me." That bitterness is familiar by now, but the suggestion she's like Magneto instantly recalls Arnold I try Dane's voice on the phone, angry and disgusted, << "Do you have any idea what this is doing to your mother? I just knew you were going to turn out like him." >> Her resentment flashes to blinding rage that rattles steel all around the room and beyond. "Oh, he'd want to be here for me now?" << How does cue-ball here even know >> "He had two fucking decades to do that! Was I not interesting enough? Not radical enough? Not powerful enough?" Her tears start falling hot and fast, which only makes her more furious. "But now--what? I've done enough terrorism to meet with his approval or--or--" Her thoughts are piling up faster than she can voice them, and she just gives a frustrated "Ugh! Fuck him and fuck you, too!" before storming out. Xavier's brows furrow deeply. "I don't know that," he hedges, little though she's heeding him. "And it's...it's rather more complicated than that." His expression is serene, but his body tenses when the metal all around him shivers violently. "Please, Polaris. I know you are upset, but if you'll only tarry a moment there's something important I need to..." His mouth compresses as she storms out, but he makes no move to stop her. "...tell you."