Yet Another Friendly Day
Jun 25, 2011 16:44:54 GMT -5
Post by Magneto on Jun 25, 2011 16:44:54 GMT -5
It was a friendly day, as per usual.
That was what the days had been like ever since Erik had arrived in Paris. Friendly.
The sun was usually willing to come out and play, even on days where it was more of a watery token appearance than with any intent of giving off light and heat. It was still enough to make the weather seem friendly.
People seemed to generally mind their own, often crazy business. Displays of superpowers - if you could even call them that in a place where most people seemed to have something or other of the like - were either shrugged off, deemed good entertainment or even... useful. Just a few days ago some local peasant had noticed Erik using his gift. It hadn't inspired fear or even awe. The man had simply approached him and asked whether, since he was good with metals anyway, Erik would mind giving him a little help with the broken axle on his cart. Erik had complied... after all, the request had been friendly.
Quite frankly, Erik was getting sick and tired of "friendly".
He leaned back on the bench he was sitting on. Nothing special, just a normal wood and metal bench on the small square in front of the Xavier & Lehnsherr Home for Gifted Children. Still, it gave the neighborhood quite a friendly atmosphere.
There it was again... that word.
In a world where all was friendly, Erik was quite frankly lost.
It wasn't that he didn't enjoy being here, with Charles... he truly loved the man, there was no question there. It was just... that this was like living a dream. Charles' dream of overall friendliness and general tolerance. And, in part, his dream too... after all, it did seem as if everyone in this city had something that made them exceptional, even if they weren't part of the Homo Superior genetic group.
Some were even LEARNING their gifts... from BOOKS!
Without thinking, Erik summoned a discarded coin from the grass. Just some lost change, near worthless... near meaningless... except for the pattern in which it began to glide a path through his fingers. The very same path that had, years - lifetimes, it seemed - ago been made by a Reichsmark coin.
Near worthless... near meaningless... that was what Erik felt like, sometimes. Often. Whenever his mind had time to drift like this.
Times where he would remember being a man on a mission. A leader. Someone fighting for something, be it revenge or the prevention of tragedies to come.
He had even been an icon when presumed dead after the mega-Sentinels' attack on Genosha. There had been mutants wearing T-Shirts and caps with his image, decorating their room with posters of him, all bearing the same slogan: "Magneto Was Right".
Magneto... Erik scoffed at even thinking the name.
What was left of the great mutant leader... terrorist... warrior now?
Oh, sure, he was a teacher... but that had always been more Charles' calling than his own. The children were just what the world was. Friendly. Friendly enough, in any case. Even the older "children", the ones who didn't quite trust him... they were friendly enough. But he'd never had what Charles had. That almost fatherly feeling, that connection.
Erik wasn't much one for connecting.
Well, except for with Charles... but that was a different matter entirely.
People often pretended like love was the great conqueror, but even with the love of the one man he trusted... truly trusted... truly loved... Erik was still very much a general without an army, a knight without a quest... or any other lame comparison anyone could think of.
It was the way he'd spent his life. Fighting. For survival, in the camp. For revenge, afterwards. It had been that fight for revenge that had made his path cross with Charles' to begin with. And after that... after the revenge and after...
No, no... don't think that. Don't go there. Don't think of how you hurt him. Physically, by your carelessness deflecting that bullet... mentally, by leaving him. He would have forgiven you for killing that monster, if only you hadn't been so obsessed with the fight. Fighting back, but it was still fighting.
Erik figured most people had a memory of a day at the beach with a loved one... it was just that most people didn't shout at that memory. Telling it 'No, you idiot! Just drop them! Don't do this!' while the memory proceeded as it always did, to the painful... painful conclusion. Pain. Remorse. Guilt. Guilt...
The coin was sent flying from the mutant's fingers, lodging in the stone surface of the small fountain that was in the center of the square. It was enough to shake Erik from his memories.
Slowly, deliberately, he got up and walked towards the fountain, staring down at his rippled reflection in the water.
He was a warrior without a war... so what was he now? Free? Free to be what and who he'd always wanted to be? Even he didn't know who or what that was. It had been so long... surely he'd had dreams? Before all this started he'd been a boy... boys dream of futures. What had his dreams been, before the Nazi's had smashed them?
Had they been of becoming a watchmaker, like his father? Of meeting and marrying a nice girl and be a father... a real father, not the biological kind he already was? Or were they the sort of dreams that foreshadowed his true life? Of being a war hero, like people called his father before it all went wrong? Had the young boy dreamed of an iron cross on his lapel, being called a Proud Son of Germany? Chasing women, like his uncle often encouraged him to do, much to the exasperation of his mother and sister?
A bitter smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he looked down at himself in the shallow water.
"Was möchtest du, Max?"
((Yeah, that kind of ran away with me... tag whoever thinks they can do something with it? ))
That was what the days had been like ever since Erik had arrived in Paris. Friendly.
The sun was usually willing to come out and play, even on days where it was more of a watery token appearance than with any intent of giving off light and heat. It was still enough to make the weather seem friendly.
People seemed to generally mind their own, often crazy business. Displays of superpowers - if you could even call them that in a place where most people seemed to have something or other of the like - were either shrugged off, deemed good entertainment or even... useful. Just a few days ago some local peasant had noticed Erik using his gift. It hadn't inspired fear or even awe. The man had simply approached him and asked whether, since he was good with metals anyway, Erik would mind giving him a little help with the broken axle on his cart. Erik had complied... after all, the request had been friendly.
Quite frankly, Erik was getting sick and tired of "friendly".
He leaned back on the bench he was sitting on. Nothing special, just a normal wood and metal bench on the small square in front of the Xavier & Lehnsherr Home for Gifted Children. Still, it gave the neighborhood quite a friendly atmosphere.
There it was again... that word.
In a world where all was friendly, Erik was quite frankly lost.
It wasn't that he didn't enjoy being here, with Charles... he truly loved the man, there was no question there. It was just... that this was like living a dream. Charles' dream of overall friendliness and general tolerance. And, in part, his dream too... after all, it did seem as if everyone in this city had something that made them exceptional, even if they weren't part of the Homo Superior genetic group.
Some were even LEARNING their gifts... from BOOKS!
Without thinking, Erik summoned a discarded coin from the grass. Just some lost change, near worthless... near meaningless... except for the pattern in which it began to glide a path through his fingers. The very same path that had, years - lifetimes, it seemed - ago been made by a Reichsmark coin.
Near worthless... near meaningless... that was what Erik felt like, sometimes. Often. Whenever his mind had time to drift like this.
Times where he would remember being a man on a mission. A leader. Someone fighting for something, be it revenge or the prevention of tragedies to come.
He had even been an icon when presumed dead after the mega-Sentinels' attack on Genosha. There had been mutants wearing T-Shirts and caps with his image, decorating their room with posters of him, all bearing the same slogan: "Magneto Was Right".
Magneto... Erik scoffed at even thinking the name.
What was left of the great mutant leader... terrorist... warrior now?
Oh, sure, he was a teacher... but that had always been more Charles' calling than his own. The children were just what the world was. Friendly. Friendly enough, in any case. Even the older "children", the ones who didn't quite trust him... they were friendly enough. But he'd never had what Charles had. That almost fatherly feeling, that connection.
Erik wasn't much one for connecting.
Well, except for with Charles... but that was a different matter entirely.
People often pretended like love was the great conqueror, but even with the love of the one man he trusted... truly trusted... truly loved... Erik was still very much a general without an army, a knight without a quest... or any other lame comparison anyone could think of.
It was the way he'd spent his life. Fighting. For survival, in the camp. For revenge, afterwards. It had been that fight for revenge that had made his path cross with Charles' to begin with. And after that... after the revenge and after...
No, no... don't think that. Don't go there. Don't think of how you hurt him. Physically, by your carelessness deflecting that bullet... mentally, by leaving him. He would have forgiven you for killing that monster, if only you hadn't been so obsessed with the fight. Fighting back, but it was still fighting.
Erik figured most people had a memory of a day at the beach with a loved one... it was just that most people didn't shout at that memory. Telling it 'No, you idiot! Just drop them! Don't do this!' while the memory proceeded as it always did, to the painful... painful conclusion. Pain. Remorse. Guilt. Guilt...
The coin was sent flying from the mutant's fingers, lodging in the stone surface of the small fountain that was in the center of the square. It was enough to shake Erik from his memories.
Slowly, deliberately, he got up and walked towards the fountain, staring down at his rippled reflection in the water.
He was a warrior without a war... so what was he now? Free? Free to be what and who he'd always wanted to be? Even he didn't know who or what that was. It had been so long... surely he'd had dreams? Before all this started he'd been a boy... boys dream of futures. What had his dreams been, before the Nazi's had smashed them?
Had they been of becoming a watchmaker, like his father? Of meeting and marrying a nice girl and be a father... a real father, not the biological kind he already was? Or were they the sort of dreams that foreshadowed his true life? Of being a war hero, like people called his father before it all went wrong? Had the young boy dreamed of an iron cross on his lapel, being called a Proud Son of Germany? Chasing women, like his uncle often encouraged him to do, much to the exasperation of his mother and sister?
A bitter smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he looked down at himself in the shallow water.
"Was möchtest du, Max?"
((Yeah, that kind of ran away with me... tag whoever thinks they can do something with it? ))