→ it's so quiet here and i feel so cold,

[mentis]

Who: Charles Xavier & you!
What: You guessed it - tiny mutant running around trying to teach you all the ways of the world and how Einstein is cooler than everyone. Also this is a recurring dream because neglect makes you like that. a/n: If you feel like running in to Charles at any other age too then that's fine, he'll be haunting his house. Just back from boarding school? Go for it. Annoying and drunk and just like his mother? Sure. Twenty-seven and lusting over Erik worrying about his newly adopted children? I am all set for all things but let's just focus on how the mansion is terrible yes. Just let me know.
When: Day 83 - 88
Where: Xavier Mansion, big and dark and creepy.
Warnings: The most adorable little telepath ( after River, obviously ) that you will ever meet.



Kitchen. Living room. Foyer. Library. Grounds. Choose your own adventure.

Comments

[mentis]

He smiles and leads her through the halls to the kitchen. He even holds the door open for her and then finds the light switches, bathing the room in a dim light. None of the staff are down here currently and he moves around the place like he's used to it.

"Would you like some juice?"

Okay yes, he's still a child. Juice is where it's at. "The cat can have milk too if it wants, I'll find a saucer."

[blackmagus]

"Certainly. I think he'd like that."

Jazz sits down at her feet as she watches him move about. While she'd been a very dutiful child herself, due to a hundred different factors, he's much more polite than she'd ever been. Fortescue sits down in a chair that's been left out, smiling.

"Are you always a night owl?"

[mentis]

"I was reading."

Occasionally he has to lift himself on to the very tips of his toes to reach something but it's minutes before he's bringing the juice and the saucer over. "I like to read at night, the house is quiet."

[blackmagus]

She glances around at the big kitchen. It reminds her of the house she's kept in, in more ways than one, and she can't help but wonder what it's like for a child to grow up in a place like this. Is it lonely?

"There must be a lot of nice reading nooks, in a place like this," she notes. "What do you like to read?"

[mentis]

"Science fiction."

He says it brightly but with the air of someone who has often been told off for silly endeavours, "I like books about time travel. And aliens."

[blackmagus]

Fortescue chuckles. "I like that genre, too." Really, though, she read almost anything she could find on the telenet, back home. "Who's your favorite author?"

[mentis]

"I like Philip Wylie, he wrote When World's Collide and it was really good."

Pulling himself up on a stool, at once like a very small adult and a clumsy child, "My mother doesn't like me reading them though. She thinks they're silly."

[blackmagus]

"Your mother sounds very stern and proper... My parents were scientists. They encouraged that sort of thing." She pauses, adding, "Although I did have a sword-and-sorcery phase when I was a teenager, and they were a bit disapproving of the historical inaccuracies."

[mentis]

That catches his curiosity, "Father was a scientist too. I'm going to be one when I grow up."

[blackmagus]

"That's a noble goal." Fortescue smiles. "What would you like to study?"

[mentis]

"Biology."

People don't tend to ask him these kind of questions and so he's only slightly suspicious, "I want to work out what makes people different from each other."

[blackmagus]

There's certainly been plenty of biological work in Fortescue's world, but her interest is in the boy rather than the subject. He's a precocious one, but oddly endearing with his enthusiasm. She wonders, in the back of her mind, if he and Mirabelle would have gotten on. But she throws that line of thought away quickly. There's a lot of pain in that direction.

"I imagine there's plenty of mystery there to last you a lifetime."

[mentis]

He doesn't know yet that he will spend his whole life chasing the very thing that makes him different. He only knows to be cautious and hold thoughts away from his own.

"I hope so too. I like mystery. What do you do?"

[blackmagus]

She can't tell him the truth, not really, and so instead she goes to the explanation that everyone seems most comfortable with. "I'm a soldier, of sorts. Not quite as interesting as being a scientist."

Not when you were the one out there, anyway. There's certainly plenty of excitement — hence why spy fiction is so prevalent — but unless you're of the right mindset to enjoy it, it's pure stress. Fortescue herself struggles with whether she does enjoy it.

[mentis]

"Isn't that very scary?"

[blackmagus]

Fortescue smiles slightly, wry, and nods. No need to sugar coat it. "It can be," she confirms. "Like a lot of things that need doing. Especially during a war."

[mentis]

"But you do it anyway?"

He watches Jazz with interest but there's no sign that he's ignoring her, more than he's divided his attention between the two. A soldier and a cat. "That's very brave."

[blackmagus]

Really, she has no option other than fighting. But had she been able to go into the profession she'd wanted — a pilot — she would be involved in the war one way or another. Fortescue shrugs her shoulders a little.

"It's something I need to do. And it's important. So, I do it. But I think you'll be getting a much better arrangement, as a scientist."

[mentis]

"I'll get to do lots of experiments!"

Which is apparently the main thing.

[blackmagus]

Fortescue chortles quietly. "I hope so. I hear that's the best part of science."

It certainly beats the paperwork, right?

[mentis]

"What does your cat do while you're away?"

[blackmagus]

"Oh, he comes with me, most of the time. We make a good team. He stays out of the worst of it," she adds. Jazz knows when to keep his head down. It helps that Fortescue rarely gets into a fight she can't get out of. "But on a... few occasions, he's had to stay home. And I have... friends who look after him. They say he howls when I'm gone."

They're not friends, and the howls are anything but cute. But the story is true, otherwise.

[mentis]

He hangs off her every word with the kind of fascination that lives in every child regardless of how very little childishness he has about him. "When we lived in England the groundskeeper had a cat who would protect the place from birds. She was orange and had half an ear missing."

Charles had been fond of her.

[blackmagus]

Fortescue glances around the kitchen. It would be too suspect and odd to ask where they are now. She feels off-balance enough to not know. "And how long have you been living... here?"

[mentis]

"A year. We used to live in England but mother wanted to move here."

Charles isn't too keen on America but he doesn't voice that. "Mother says America is a place of opportunity."