xp_logs | The Caged Bird - Chatting With Daddy

Lorna and Magneto talk. Or Magneto talks and expects Lorna to listen.

"Now remember," Mystique said as she pulled the car up to the large, nondescript block building in the middle of a sea of other identical fabrications, "you're to be on your best behaviour while you're here." Shutting off the engine, she turned to flash Lorna a feral smile, her teeth incredibly white against the cobalt of her skin. "Any attempts to do anything stupid and your friends will bear the punishment. They did teach you about cause and effect at college, right?"

Lorna glared at Mystique, "Did you even go to college?" She snapped before getting out of the car. "And stop threatening me. I’m here aren't I? I haven't put up a fight. If I did, the car would be a pile of rubble and you know it." Lorna added before closing the door shut. Looking up at the building and prayed to whoever was listening that Sue was alright. This was not how she wanted to have her family reunion. She was confident that her dad wouldn't hurt her, even if she betrayed his trust. Letting out a the air she was holding in and started to walk to the building.

All she heard from Mystique was a low chuckle behind her as the shapeshifter followed her inside. Perhaps it was rude of her not to be cowed by Lorna's threats, but then, she spent her days around far more volatile mutants. "Why your father wanted you here is beyond me. But watch the attitude - his generosity only extends so far. And my patience for adolescent antics." This last bit was said in a low murmur; apparently Mystique didn't want to be overheard threatening his daughter.

They found Lorna's father in the storage facility's main office, comfortably reclining on an old leather chair with his feet up on the desk. He was reading a yellowed old paperback that had long since lost its cover, but he set it aside and lowered his legs when the door opened. "Lorna, my dear," he greeted warmly.

Lorna ignored Mystique's words. She knew her father's patience but then again, she also knew a softer side. Maybe it was because she was so young when she was taken in. "Daddy..." She couldn't help but call him as such when she walked through the door. She stopped when she was a foot away from where he sat, "Why did you have to bring in Alex and his family? They don't know anything."

The man called Magneto sighed softly as he made his way around the desk and approached his daughter. He put his hands on her shoulders and smiled when he looked into her green eyes. "Come, you must be hungry. Have you been eating well?"

He didn't answer her question. What was he playing at? Nor did he pry about her second life, or perhaps he was stalling? Sometimes she felt like she could never get a read on him or what he was thinking. "Dad. I am guessing you didn't hold them hostage because you wanted to make sure I was eating well."

"It's very difficult to get a hold of you," he lamented. "I'm sorry that you had to go through that, my dear, I am. But no one was ever in any real danger, I assure you. Everyone was perfectly safe. And now you're here. With me. Where you belong."

"Really? Because I wouldn't put it past Mystique to hurt people to get them to cooperate. Are they really safe? The Ross’? Their daughter? Alex?" Lorna shook her head and stepped away from her dad, "I don't belong here. I can't hurt people to get what we want. I did it once and I regret it. I already have guilt over mom, I don't need more deaths looming over me."

"What happened to your mother was not your fault," he said, squeezing her shoulders tenderly, as if to reassure her of the veracity of his words. "But she is gone, and you are all I have left of her. I need you to return to me, my dear. Your place is here, with me, by my side."

"Dad..." Lorna tried to find her voice as she didn't trust herself at the moment. "You don't need me. You have your Brotherhood. They are going to be far more willing to please and bend to your will. I can't."

"I would never do that to you." The parental warmth never left his face, but his tone of voice hardened. The Magneto that terrified the world was beginning to manifest. "You are not here to 'please me' or be subverted. I have brought you here because I need you, Lorna. We can do glorious things together, you and I. Create the world where . . ." He sighed and reached a hand up to gently brush her dyed hair. "Where you do not need to hide your beauty."

She was pushing his buttons, Lorna knew it. "A world where we rule over the humans? Once upon a time, I believed that we could actually be better than them, but we aren't. That world is just a dream. Nothing more. I don't want to hurt people, humans or mutants. And my opinion won't change on that."

Magneto – and he was surely Magneto now, not Erik Lehnsherr, not Daddy – tssked and shook his head. The smile was still there, but the parental warmth was replaced with another heat, a searing inferno of the destruction he would leave to those who defied him and his righteous might. "We'll have all the time in the world to discuss this further, my dear. Now that you've returned to me."