[CENTER][hr][/center][sup][h1][center][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/528055544267931661/1106717708877299722/image.png[/img][/center][b][center][color=black] P O L A R I S[/color]
[color=68AF5F]P O L A R I S[/color][/center]
[/b][/h1][/sup][indent][sub][COLOR=68AF5F][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] The Raft - Visiting Room[/sub][sup][right][COLOR=68AF5F][b]Post #1:[/b][/COLOR] His Penance[/right][/sup][/indent][hr]
[INDENT][color=silver]“You’re back again.”[/color]

Lorna Dane sighs, as the words of the prison guard swung at her like a well placed punch to the stomach.

She thought she’d be used to it by now, but by all consideration she had been having a pretty shitty ten months. She had no love for the bought-and-paid-for prison monkeys, or their comments and prying eyes that latched onto her like magnets.

[color=silver]“I bet it gets real lonely, huh?”[/color] The man chirps again. His uniform tags read ‘H. Taylor’. He’s unkempt, the kind of guy that would say something to a girl to make her run as far away as she possibly can. She can’t stand him, even after years of dealing with his remarks about her, Alex, or mutants in general. He’s a racist. He fits right in with the rest of The Raft’s detail. [color=silver]“Man, you’re some girl. Loyal. When are you going to give up on him?”[/color]

[color=68AF5F]“Never.”[/color]

It had been five years since M-Day, the incident that still had its claws deep inside of her. 

Her father, the mutant extremist known as Magneto, had initiated an attack that had ended with his capture and that of all of his accomplices. This included that of her boyfriend, Alex Summers, or as the world knew him: Havok.

The Raft had been built to hold mutants like them. People who were too dangerous for civilized society. People who technically, by legal definition were not ‘human’ so were not privy to ‘human rights’. That was the quiet part that nobody, not even her mentor, Charles Xavier, wanted to talk about. The United States Government hadn’t [i]exactly[/i] labeled mutants as non-human, but they hadn’t exactly subjected them to normal due process either. To Lorna, her fathers talk about Nazi Germany echoed in her mind every single time she thought about it and politicians like Robert Kelly or anti-mutant militias like The Purifiers only made the worries cycle faster and louder. 

[color=silver]“I wonder what it's like for you. Knowing that he might not ever be cleared for release. Knowing you put him here.”[/color]

She didn’t. Not technically. But the words still cut.

M-Day was a battle for the soul of mutantkind. Were they the vicious terrorists that people like Senator Robert Kelly painted them as?, or were they defenders of humanity and mutantkind alike like Charles Xavier and Hank McCoy insisted?

It all climaxed in a final battle between her and her father. Their powers were the same, though their masteries were not at all alike. In an emotional rage she had not quite seen ever, her aloof father had tried to show her how big the gap between their powers were. She still didn’t know if he would’ve killed her, but Alex, who had switched to his side like she had once switched to Xavier’s, saved her. In a way it saved their relationship, vindicating all of her efforts to change his mind. He could’ve avoided his imprisonment in The Raft then and there, but he felt too guilty and desired to face the consequences of joining up with Magneto in the first place. She screamed and cried, but in the end it didn’t matter.

The public story was Polaris and the other X-Men stopped Magneto and the Acolytes. They didn’t know the details.

[color=68AF5F]“I know you like tormenting mutants, but could you do me a solid and fuck off?”[/color]

Guardsman Taylor laughs, Lorna grits her teeth and sighs.

This visit was nearing Alex’s re-evaluation period. They probably were not going to give it to him, but that was the thing about hope–they liked dangling it in front of people.

But if somehow Xavier had enough pull that Havok could be released into his care, there’s still a piece of her inside that doubts it’d work. Her relationship had been strained by Alex’s decision and society’s reaction to her–to mutantkind, but if it was another five years she would continue to do as she had done for the last five: every single month she would make sure she saw Alex face-to-face, or behind a sheet of glass, whatever it was, until he was clear and free.

That was her promise to herself.

[color=68AF5F]“Alex…”[/color] she mutters, as she sits down in the visiting room, surrounded by guards, waiting for him to finally reach her. [color=68AF5F]“...where are you?”[/color]
[/INDENT]