Introduction to the School

[notsogroovy]

1407 Graymalkin Lane, Salem Center, Westchester County, NY. Also known as Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters.

It was the site of hope for dozens of students built upon the bones of a lonely childhood. Two times the school had been opened. The first attempt had been destroyed by the war and by the patriotism (or recruitment) of students and teachers who felt they were doing what was right. The second attempt would prove to be more successful, run by a headmaster who had regained his own hope.

The school, the home, was no longer a place of loneliness. Instead, there were children almost always on the move, fluttering down from the top floor, walking through walls, or just appearing with a loud Bamf. There were darker things at the school, of course. Nightmares that could boil the walls of a room if left unchecked and homesickness, sometimes for homes that had rejected them. But there were also adults who mentored these children. Pain and heartache may have still been in the house, but so too were companionship and support.

It was an air that the teachers deliberately tried to invoke since many of them hadn’t had it in their own childhoods. They’d had to hide or were hidden or were even persecuted just for being who they were. It was the teachers who had all decided that they would try to make the lives of the children easier than their own.

But that didn’t come without a cost. There were layers beneath the school, layers where some of the students were trained to protect themselves and others and to fight. The world might have seen mutants in a different light after Mystique’s rescue ten years ago, but they’d also seen what Magneto could do. Mutants might have finally been in the light, but they still weren’t always safe and that was where the X-Men came in. Hoping for a better future, but also preparing for a worse one.

And that was really what Xavier’s was: a refuge and a place to forge the next generation of mutants, ones who wouldn’t have to live in the darkness their forefathers had. And it was up to their teachers to make sure they were ready for that future.

Comments

[verpissdich]

"Well, I can't disagree with that." Warren offers the older mutant another slight smile and pushes away from the office door, dragging his already raised hand down the back of his neck and around to scrub over his face.

"At least they seem like a somewhat sensible group." Stable, which is something that he needs in his life right now.

He turns on his heel and starts down the hallway toward the foyer, pausing mid-step to turn and glance over his shoulder at Erik with a silent, 'You coming?'

[frankensteinian]

He might as well. It's not like he's going to sleep anyway. He has become the sort of night watchman over the school while everyone else is asleep. Probably a good thing for Warren; someone else might not have been able to convince him to come inside.

"They can be sensible. Under the correct conditions." Most of the time. Pretty much they just follow Charles' lead, so the trouble comes when Charles and Erik disagree on something.

[verpissdich]

"What kinda conditions?" he asks, being sure to keep the conversation going as he begins to lead them back toward the foyer. Metal on metal resonates from the appendages at his back, the scraping not unlike a blade across a whetstone; he's nervous about all of this. The fact he'd been so easily accepted into the school felt ... wrong in a way.

After a quick shake of the head, Warren straightens and picks up the pace of his stride, hurrying to get outside so he can return to the roof for his things. Erik should have no trouble keeping up.

[frankensteinian]

"Most of them are teenagers, but they can be sensible when they're not under duress." Like any other person, really. When someone's life is threatened, they tend to lose more control of themselves.

Erik keeps up easily. "There are worse groups to be a part of."

[verpissdich]

"Most people have less knee-jerk reactions when they don't have to worry about when their next meal is gonna be or if that guy might knife them for being a mutant." That might have been a far deeper peek into his thoughts than he would've liked.

Good, because Warren's pace increases marginally after that slip-up, one of his arms raising to elbow the foyer door open so he can get outside.. "Heh, like the one before?"

[frankensteinian]

"Then it's a good thing that they don't have to worry about those things, isn't it?" Certainly not here, where they're all mutants, but even in Westchester, the town seems to have accepted the mutants' presence here, even after the recent events in which the world nearly ended (and he knows there's a reason that Charles, and Moira too, only ever mentioned his role in helping to save the world, and not his role in helping to end it).

"Definitely not one of my better decisions." He knows that now, although he didn't care to hear it at the time.

[verpissdich]

"Yeah, it is." For once, Warren's grateful that he isn't being questioned about his life before living on the roof of the school. A few people knew his decision to be in the club and while he might not have regretted it at the time, he's now wondering if fleeing the country when he'd had the chance would have been a better choice. Too late for that and there's no way for him to travel back in time that he knows of, so best to let it be.

"You're not alone in that," he states, stretching those steel wings out and taking to the air again, reaching the edge of the roof within a few seconds then striding over to a small crevice between what he'd assumed was an observation tower and another pillar to gather his belongings, which isn't all that much.