The Space Fox Saga [for coffeevixen]

The young woman before him possesses a mess of red hair that could likely stand to have a hairbrush taken to it seven times over. She's not unkempt, per se, but she's definitely dressed down: Jeans, black sneakers, and a light blue short-sleeved sweater. The latest in fashion is definitely not in her repertoire. Pretty dresses were best served on others.

She smiles nervously at the man who greets her, and keeps her voice down. "Hi, there. I ah... I've --I'm hoping I have the right place." There's a hint of Chicago in her voice as she speaks, but there's a lengthy pause with some shifting of feet as she gathers up her courage. "I heard it through the grapevine that maybe this was a safe place to come." Her voice drops to a whisper, and oh, please say she's at the right place. "I'm a Mutant."

Hold breath. Wait for instruction. Get ready to run.

"You've come to the right place," he replies, stepping aside, shutting the door behind her when she enters. As he leads her down the hall towards his office, he looks at her sidelong. "Do you not know who I am?" he asks with some amusement.

He's a little outspoken on mutant rights. Sometimes more so than Charles would like.

She pulls her attention away from a remarkably nice chair toward the end of the hall and looks up at him, trying to put a face on something in her memory. Her brow furrows slightly as her expression turns slightly sheepish.

"I'm sorry. I don't." Perhaps a television would benefit her, or maybe picking up a newspaper once in a while (with what money, she doesn't know, but that's beside the point).

He looks at her sidelong, a little amused.

"Who told you about this place?"

Well, okay. He doesn't seem irritated at her distinct lack of knowledge about him, though Charlotte's kicking herself a bit for not being able to find out more about the place, or the man. "A friend of mine. Only person I trust to know anything about me and the whole Mutant thing." She glances at the floor. "He'd overheard someone at a diner talking about it.

"I'm guessing you're one of the founders?"

"My name is Erik Lehnsherr," he tells her, watching her with a sidelong look to see if she recognized that. Perhaps from the news a couple years back. "But they call me 'Magneto'." A slightly more infamous but sometimes better known moniker of his.

Oh! Oh. There's a few owlish blinks as the light dawns, and she smirks. "'Magneto', yeah. Biggest name on the front page of the Chicago Tribune." She pauses as the smirk morphs into a softer smile. "You stood up for us. I'm not sure there's a way to thank you that's big enough."

"Sure there is. Come to class. Get an education. Contribute to mutant society so they can't deny us." He looks at her sidelong. "We need to stick together. Look after each other. Everyone who become part of that is thanking me enough."

The door of his office opens ahead of them and he leads her inside.

"Have a seat," he tells her, moving to sit on the other side of the large stainless steel desk.

"What's your name?" he asks, taking out a form and a pen.

She smiles at the openness about what's being offered here, things that had eluded her for so many years. Being honest about who and what you are while she was growing up? Unheard of. She's got the scars of silence to prove it.

A small chuckle, though, at 'get an education', but it's mum for the moment as Charlotte finds the door's apparent automation fascinating (Duh, 'Magneto'...), and sits herself across from him once situated.

"Charlotte Lowell."

He makes a note.

"Age?"

There's a brief consideration that perhaps applications should be left at the entrance, but he has a nice voice. It's not all that bad, vixen...

"Twenty-two."

"Is this going to be your primary residence?"

It's pretty common for mutants to have nowhere else to go.

"You're going to live here year-round?" he clarifies.

Well, that's an interesting question. Her brow furrows. "I found a room to rent not far from here." Read: Shithole until she gets a proper job, but we'll leave that be for the moment. "I mean, I'm not a student, not really. I've graduated college...

"Is it a requirement to stay? Not that it would be bad, but financially speaking, I'm a might strapped."

"We're all students here. Even the teachers. But it doesn't cost anything to stay here." He pauses and puts his pen down, his eyes on her face. "Wouldn't you rather have a clean room and three square meals?"

His eyes are steely and intriguing. Easy enough to fall into if she's not careful.

Charlotte gives a short, quiet laugh at his 'three square meals'. "Does it sound pretty nice? Sure. But it also sounds an awful lot like something way too good to be true." She drops her gaze to her hands briefly before looking back. "I get by, but I'll let you know if anything changes."

"Isn't it a sad state of affairs for our people that basic necessities and looking out for each other seem 'too good to be true'? That's why this place exists. Maybe you'll see it eventually."

He closes the file and gets up.

"I'll show you the facilities." He makes a gesture for her to precede him out the door and the door opens for her.

She stares at him for a long moment, making the honest attempt to put away her doubts about this whole situation; about what he's offering. If you're doubting it so much, then why in the ever loving hell did you come all this way?

Charlotte is still fascinated by the door, even if she knows its Erik's doing. "How old were you?"

"How old was I when?"

Erik gets a lot of 'how old were you when' questions. About his powers, about the war and the death of his parents, about first finding other mutants. The tattoo on his arm is small and discrete, but it's not hidden under clothing; he's wearing a polo shirt. He doesn't know what she's read in the papers. She could be asking anything from where he's standing. Or, rather, walking as he leads her towards the kitchen.

"When you first knew that you were different from others. That you could...y'know." She shrugs gently, wanting to ask 'were 'Magneto?' but refrains. There was so much more to all of them than just a superhero-esque name. "You were a Mutant?"

He glances at her sidelong, then turns his attention back to the familiar hallway in front of him.

"I was thirteen. I was separated from my parents by the guards at the entrance to a concentration camp and I reached for them. The gate bent in half. They had to knock me out with the butt of a rifle." He glances again. "But they do say our powers tend to manifest in times of emotional duress," he notes dryly. "How did you first get yours?"

Erik's story breaks her heart. She was born right after the war had begun for the US involvement, and she'd heard many stories that emerged from the rubble of Europe, and that of the many lives both lost and forever changed.

Charlotte gives a sad smile as she shakes her head. "I was about thirteen. No real manifestation of duress." She looks up at him. "It was the middle of the night, and I was sleeping. Having a nightmare, I think." Her gaze falls to her shoes. "I just know it was excruciatingly painful when it happened, and I'd cried loud enough for my father to hear.

"That didn't go so well."

"Is that why you've been living on the street?" he surmises. "Human society isn't accepting of people who are different. It's the same story time and again throughout history." He looks at her sidelong. "But that doesn't mean you don't have a people."

He pushes open the kitchen door.

"Do you want anything to eat before we continue the tour?"

"That came a few, reasonably hellacious years later, but yes. It is." Her stomach flips slightly at what he says about society, especially the later part. She'd been on her own for so long, Charlotte hadn't been sure of what that could possibly mean.

She shakes her head at the offer of food, still making the attempt to put all her scattered thoughts and emotions into some semblance of order. "No, thank you. Perhaps later." Go on, Charlotte. Change the subject because you're not sure of what else to do when someone offers you food.

"What does a typical day in the life look like here?"

"A typical day? Breakfast. Classes. Discussions. Lunch. Comraderie. Training. Supper." He looks over at her. "Hard to describe everything that goes on when part of it is dependent on what each person needs to work on."

"Sounds a little like my undergrad." Glancing over with a smile, she considers just how big this place really is, and she ultimately wonders about the population. Where they come from; who they are. How long had they been staying here? Can anyone ever really go home?

"And do you teach?"

They can go home if they have a home to go to and if they don't, they can stay as long as they wish.

"I do. Charles tries to keep me to purely objective subjects like math and science, but I insist on teaching a history course. He doesn't understand the history of oppression like I do, but that's probably why he doesn't want me conveying it to children."

She arches a brow and frowns, glancing at his arm. "Oppression is a major part of a lot of the world's evolution, as terrible as that really is. Not teaching it would be a disgrace and disservice to those who experienced that oppression. Adults and children alike."

Charlotte huffs out a short, unamused laugh. "Granted, the United States government and education system could certainly stand to have a lesson about their own history drilled into its brains." She shrugs with a half-smile. "But the people are damn well taking a stand." If anyone missed the Civil Rights Movement? They would have to be willfully blind, ignorant, all of the above, or dead.

She waves off her small tirade, following it with a sheepish smile. "Sorry. I think it's great, even if he doesn't think so. Hard to explain to people what they don't quite understand."

"Well. He teaches it. He teaches it the way textbooks teach it: like a thing that happens to other people and far away."

He looks at her. "People standing up and saying 'no' is the only way that things change."

The Space Fox Saga [for coffeevixen]

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