18362/I'm Trying To Get a Sense of Mutant Joy

I'm Trying To Get a Sense of Mutant Joy
Date of Scene:	18 June 2024
Location:	Genoshan Embassy
Synopsis:	Dominique makes an appointment at the Genoshan Embassy to ask a very important person an even more important question.
Cast of Characters:	Lorna Dane, Dominique Thiebaut

---

Lorna Dane has posed:
The Genoshan Embassy is a dual-purpose structure: the bottom half is for the community - of Bushwick, of Mutantkind at large in all its variations, with recreation spaces, a library, computer stations, classes, and a host of other features to give anyone and everyone who comes a comfortable home away from home on Genoshan soil; the top half's for the rest of the world, a slew of sleek and mindfully sculpted signifiers designed to both invite visitors to enjoy their time at the Embassy, and remind them that Genosha is more than bleak memories or a series of tragedies, but the thriving womb from which the future might one day be born.

Absent an appointment, the first two floors are all that the average guest is likely to see; appointments - even with state officials-- even with the Queen herself - are not so hard to come by, though. Their schedules are busy, sure, but the Queen in particular is more used to being among the people than beyond them; all it really takes for her to find a little time is someone who seems to need it.

Regardless of how Dominique's chosen to come - spontaneously, or by design - she's greeted with a vibrant hive of activity just past the doors: kids dropped off for Summer programs, adults running around after them, other adults trying desperately to weave through the ruckus to find their way to classes, or the relative quiet of the theater, or perhaps a dining space.

Dominique Thiebaut has posed:
Dominique is surprised at how many of the children running by look visibly inhuman, then surprised that she should be surprised. It's kind of a thing with some mutants. She wonders how many of the human-looking ones are human, and are going to remember their childhood friendships when they get old enough to learn what hate is.

Well, none of her business. She has a varied and impressive skill set, but changing human nature is not on even her most puffed up CV.

She wades through the crowd with unflappable poise; her family may no longer be royalty, nor have been royalty in her lifetime, but the old lessons are still there and serve her well enough. She passes through the rituals of administration, then through security with a minimum of fuss once she explains the metal detectors are picking up fragments of old injuries. The staff knows its business enough to not be worried about some kind of Manchurian candidate trying to attack Polaris with metal objects hidden in her flesh, and let her on through after the prerequisite warnings have been passed on.

And there she is, face to face with a queen. It's a position Dominique is comfortable with. She sketches a little bow, shallow enough to be believable, not deep enough to seem sarcastic or asskissy, and greets, "Your Majesty. I didn't expect the honor of your personal attention. Thank you."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Dominique is guided to a meeting room at the end of a hallway of meeting rooms. It's spacious enough for a long table and a dozen or so chairs; today, right now, it is the Queen of Genosha's personal office. A heavy antique desk carved from dark walnut, studded and inlaid with half a dozen different alloys in varying shades of silver and brass sits a few feet removed from a picture window overlooking Mutant Town. Plants clipped from the community gardens and rapidly grown to maturity occupy the corners parallel to the desk, with a multitude of their lacy vines creeping up the walls until they disappear into the seams along the ceiling. Several paintings - of Hammer Bay, Genosha in its pre-Sentinel prime; of a thriving festival full of life and color with blown out ruins scarring the very edges of the frame; of wild shapes and colors that amount to the artist's abstract interpretation of the bizarre, morphic Sentinels that haunted G-Day - dot the walls that arent housing vines, along with metal-inlaid bookshelves. On the side of the desk closest to Dominique are two big plush chairs: green and black, metal-studded, vaguely shaped like upturned mitts, and securely balanced on stainless steel legs.

"My pleasure," says the Queen on the far side of the desk. Seated in a tall-backed, emerald and purple chair, Lorna Dane - Polaris, of Genosha - flashes her visitor a smile and unlaces her hands so her palms rest on the desk. Emerald curls cascade thickly down her shoulders, off-setting her deep violet blazer and the cream-colored blouse beneath it. A plethora of charms and bangles twinkle throughout her locks, some with tiny gemstones captured in their filigree; collectively, they wind towards the back of her head to form a complex web of fine metal.

"I try to make myself available, as schedules allow it-- please, sit--"

Gesturing towards Dominique also nudges both chairs along identical 45 degree arcs, giving the Queen's guest her choice of seats to take.

"-- and tell me how I can help you-- or, just," she finishes with a gentle smile and lightly crinkled brow, "what brought you here today."

Dominique Thiebaut has posed:
"If you'll indulge me to tell a short story, I have an internship at a multinational corporation. One of my superiors (I'm sure you'll understand if I don't identify them) recently told me in all but these exact words that they are a mutant. The experience made me think about why someone so high on the corporate ladder would play it so coy with me, literally the lowest person in the hierarchy; and that made me think about the lived experiences mutants in this country must face.

"All of that is to say, I wanted to reach out to someone, anyone, to find out what it means to be a mutant in America. Someone who has nothing to fear from me and therefore no profit on concealing things. I hadn't expected it to be you, but I'm grateful for your time regardless."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna listens.

Her fingers lace back together; propped up elbows let her lower her chin to the bridge they form, and all the while her eyes remain fixed on Dominique's. She doesn't speak, at all, but a glimmer in the corner of her eye might pass as a response to the question when it's first introduced; likewise the squaring of her shoulders, the subtle shift she makes to sit at her full height.

She still doesn't speak once it's all out there: instead, she weighs the question, the story, and their bearer with deliberately thoughtful sweeps of those vibrant emerald eyes.

Which continue shedding tiny, bright flares now and then.

"... I'm going to tell you a long story," she finally decides, when one of those sweeps ends, decisively, on Dominique's eyes. Lids tastefully stained with green and teal lower as she takes in a long, bracing breath then brings her hands back up to rest against.

"My powers first manifested when I was three years old," she exhales. With the barest flex of her right index and middle fingers, the overhead lights bathing her makeshift office in warm yellowish-white tones snap right off, casting them in darkness. Red emergency lights flicker, flare--

"I heard my mom and dad fighting, about an affair she had with some stranger-- this man who just, charmed her at a conference they were both at..."

-- and die. Emerald energy arcs across the surfaces of her eyes, and between strands of follicular jewelry.

"... and I wanted them to stop," she softly tells Dominique. "I wanted them to stop so badly, and I didn't know what was happening, and I just... exploded. Figuratively: it was an electromagnetic pulse."

One hand unlaces from the other and turns over as Lorna breathes in. Breathing out summons a crackling green pearl hovering above her palm, growing larger and brighter as her lungs empty until she's not quite clutching a baseball-sized mass of semisolid electromagnetic radiance bright enough to illuminate them both like a campfire.

"Unfortunately," comes with both a brief downward glance and practiced, defensive deadpan, "we were in an airplane.

"I have no conscious memory of any of this," she then whispers when her gaze returns, "but I know it's true. And I know that when I woke up, I was living with my father's sister, and as far as I knew, I didn't-- have powers; just a mysterious little token," comes with a dainty flick through green curls and a taut, tiny smile, "to not remember them by. My aunt and her family were just nice, normal folks who kept to themselves in San Francisco; she made sure my hair was always good and brown. Made sure I knew how much prettier I looked with nice, normal hair; how lucky I was to not have to deal with all that 'Mutant' nonsense on the news... ... and when I was 12, and my powers came back, she made damn sure I knew better than to even THINK about using them-- even thinking about them."

Tilting slightly so it's her cheek rather than her chin that's lightly pressed against her propped up wrist, Lorna continues, "When I was 14, I was taken in by a good man who was also a Mutant, and wanted to teach people like me - who didn't have anyone willing or able to help them - how to live and thrive with their powers, in the real world." A brief beat, as Lorna consciously takes a breath.

Lorna Dane has posed:
"Which I learned, quickly, fucking hated us," she softly adds. "But that was okay: we knew that if we worked hard enough, fought hard enough -- did GOOD enough -- they'd come around; they'd accept us. They wouldn't just think about the scary man in the scary, purple bucket helmet who told them that Homo Superior would sweep them aside, they'd just-- they'd see US. And it-- helped," she tentatively allows, "somewhat-- sometimes. All it cost us was our bodies, and our minds, and our faith in humanity-- our friends, sometimes, and it helped. When I got older, though, and I was in college, I just. Drifted, I guess; that was around when Genosha was first liberated," by Magneto, the scary man in the scary, purple bucket helmet who swept the genetic tyranny of the island nation into the sea and claimed it for Mutantkind, "and it felt like maybe more was possible, you know? And conveniently, I had an in, with Genosha."

Not only does her volume fall to the point of demanding utmost attention even at this narrow distance, her pace sharply drops off too, like she's delaying the inevitable as long as she can:

"Because the guy who charmed his way into my mom's pants happened to be running it, at that point," she softly admits, swallowing afterwards. "And was willing to take me under his wing, because legacy, and..."

The Queen's eyes close for as long as it takes her to indulge in another bracing breath.

"... it was a blur, for a while. Something out of a movie montage," she murmurs. "And then: G-Day happened," and the island was ravaged by a flood of Sentinels wielded by the alien superintelligence Brainiac.

"And he was gone, and I was what was left."

Lorna snaps her hand shut around the glowing orb. A split-second later, the lights bloom right back to life as if nothing happened.

"To be a Mutant in America," she then says, lowering her hands to the desk, stretched across without quite reaching, "is to hide yourself from a society that can't decide if you're loathsome, curious, or outright strange, unless you're lucky-- unless you're born into an accepting family, or found by people with the means and temperament to guide you... unless you manage to live your entire life around people who see you as you, beyond your genetics. It's being crammed into urban reservations and told to smile for the generosity of the tolerant; it's being hunted and scapegoated as an acceptable release. It's being exploited, farmed, poked, weaponized, used to fuel progress--"

While she's still quiet, Lorna can't quite manage soft anymore: by the time she catches herself and hitches amidst her list of sins, her voice and eyes alike are alight with outrage that she winds up having to do her very best to drag back down.

"... it's the hardest thing that I wouldn't give up for anything," she finally concludes. "But it IS hard; and it's fucking SCARY, whether you're ready for it or not. Nothing REALLY prepares you for the way the light goes out of a person's eyes when they recognize what you are, and decide it makes you less than them."

Dominique Thiebaut has posed:
Dominique knew all of that. Who better? She nods along in the appropriate places, keeping her face cool but sympathetic, and seizes on one of the last things Lorna said: "You wouldn't give it up, though? Because mutant culture is a thing worth preserving, or...?"

More than a bit leading, that question, but in her own mind it doesn't sound TOO blatant.

Lorna Dane has posed:
"I think that Mutantkind is the evolutionary next step, and if we - all of, humanity - are gonna have a prayer of making it much further, we need to embrace exploring, and enriching it-- giving it the best possible chance to thrive."

Lorna flashes a soft, self-aware smile.

"... but even if I didn't believe all that, I still wouldn't personally give up my own Mutanity because I'm too fuckin' stubborn to let the bastards win," she concludes, her fire reined back until it's just an everpresent glow radiating from her determined admission. Drawing her hands back until they're lying casually on the desk before her, she wonders, "Is giving it up something you've thought about?" softly, as a threaded brow gently lifts.

Dominique Thiebaut has posed:
Dominique has to admire the guile of the question. She never said she was a mutant, but now here a queen is forcing her to either explicitly lie to deny it, or admit her real purpose in asking these dumb questions, or pretend to be too stupid to answer the thing. Admittedly she's also mad as hell at being put in that position, but still, the admiration is real.

So she turns the bait. "I never thought of mutation as something that could *be* given up. Hidden, I suppose, or closeted if you like that word better, but not given up.

"But the reason I asked about mutant culture is, all the negative consequences of mutation are, well, they're sort of old news. Everyone knows the tragedy of mutation because those are the only stories non-mutants tell, like how you can tell when straight people make a movie about gay people, because straight people don't know gay joy. I'm trying to get a sense of mutant joy, if that makes sense?"

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna's smile grows a touch wider, less self-aware; more cognizant of the young woman who so curiously slid into her appointment book.

"I'm not wild about either, but it's not for me to judge other people's self-selected identifiers," she carefully answers to the first.

As for the second:

That brings her eyebrows lifting ever higher, as Dominique gradually unspools more of the agenda that brough her here-- and sends Lorna's eyes skating briskly over the young woman once again, reappraising and reassessing her all over again.

"It does," she decides, meeting clear blue eyes. "And I get it: people need to seep in the horror to empathize with us, but that's-- exhausting. Mutant culture's hard to define, from an internal perspective-- I mean, we ARE heavily marked by the violence we do to each other, have done to us... it's hard to escape the tragedy," she carefully begins.

"But there is joy in surviving the pain. There's joy in people from all over the country, the world coming together in these places they were pushed into because they have one thing in common, and it's enough to tie them together," she offers, her smile taking on a more wistful cast. "Especially in places like Bushwick," she gestures broadly around her, at the neighborhood hosting Genosha, "there's all kinds of music, and art, movies-- all sorts of expressions that bubble up to capture the feelings..."

She touches the tip of her tongue to the inner edge of her teeth for a beat. What SHOULD be a simple question for the woman who would be Queen of Mutantkind is proving challenging--

"Mutant joy is putting religious, and cultural, ethnic-- all the other dividing lines aside and embracing," she quietly offers. "It's gathering with loved ones to dream of better tomorrows and be grateful for todays together-- it's beauty in strength, and love wrought from hardship," comes amidst a soft, tentative sigh.

Dominique Thiebaut has posed:
Dominique considers this for a long moment, then says, "If I understand you, you're saying this neighborhood is the place to begin my search for mutant culture? For how mutants define themselves, rather than how humanity sees them?"

Lorna Dane has posed:
"Mutant Town-- District-X-- Bushwick, Brooklyn," Lorna rattles off the neighborhood's many names, "is what it is today because almost ten years ago, it became national law to arrest Mutants for using their powers, then parole them into halfway houses clustered in neighborhoods like this one... because of that, it wound up being one of the biggest concentrations of us anywhere, after G-Day."

Drawing her hands back up to perch on, Lorna adds, "What I'm saying is: this is a great place to learn more about the Mutant experience from Mutants, and I'm confident that I can find space in my schedule to show a curious..."

Down.

Up.

"... person," she conspicuously lands on, rather than 'Mutant', 'Human', or any other specific descriptor, "a slice of it-- a movie, maybe. Or a poetry reading, or a concert, or..."

One hand leaves her chin, gesturing in broad circles.

"... something. If you'd like. Incognito, for authenticity's sake."