A Perfect Mind

[Emma Frost]

"Close your eyes, Merando."

Emma Frost sat patiently on a stool beside a long cot where a young man lay outstretched on white silken sheets. She wore a white skirt suit that cut off just above the knee, so she kept her legs crossed at the ankle to hold them together.

He'd come to her again. His appointment. His beginnings of servitude. She knew what he was, what he had been, but it was her secret. Her's and Henry's. Magneto's daughter could keep an eye on the boy. As it was, Emma thought that the whole situation was taking a large risk. Letting the Disobedients within the castle walls. But it was His decision, and she could hardly argue.

Her hands were cold, like a doctors. But she was no physician. She was the psychiatrist, trained in the mind and medicine. Yet, she needed no perscription papers. Two hands and her own powers served to heal anything she came in comtact with.

"Now tell me..."

Her eyes narrowed, as she looked down upon him.

"What's on your mind?"


((TAGS: Merando.))

[Desperado]

He didn't want to be here.

But he had to be. He owed it to the man who saved his life. He owed it to the only man he would ever serve without question, without hesitation, without any type of ulterior motive, because he was the man who had saved Jacob from the death.

He lay on the couch with his eyes closed, as he had been told, his muscles tight, as if that could possibly prevent Ms. Frost from doing what she did. He never knew when she ever entered his mind, unless she was speaking to him in it, and he never knew when she left. He felt naked in front of this woman, and he didn't like that feeling.

"What's on your mind?" she asked him, both out loud and inside his head, and he knew that it had begun. What was on his mind? He thought of Creed and Kurt catching a knife, thought of Princess Katharine with her sisters, an outcast like he was, and the darkness. He always thought of darkness.

He hated the darkness. It was too...empty. He liked nighttime, though. He liked looking at the stars. He missed the stars. He missed...

What? What was missing? There was something in his life that was missing, but he didn't know what. He wanted to know, he needed to know. He felt that if he could only have it back, he could do what he needed to. But what could there be? Freedom? He was as free as a human could get, and he knew that. A family? He had never wanted one, so that couldn't be it. The feel of blood pumping in his ears as he chanted to the skies? Where had that thought come from? And what could it mean?

Well, that was what he was here to learn.

[Emma Frost]

The thoughts that flashed by in Merando’s head were cluttered— a mess. And Emma tried quickly to sort out the bad one’s from the good ones. The princesses were fine, so were Creed and Kurt. With a small chuckle, she stopped at this memory, taking a moment to enjoy it as if she were her patient, er, student. The servants lived a very different life from herself and her family, yet they were still freer than Emma ever imagined herself to be. She barely had time to comment on her daughter’s artwork before she had to whisk away again to her far-off Retraining Room.

Darkness surrounded her then, clouding his mind, taking over. And like a giant vacuum cleaner, Emma began to pull the thoughts away, leaving only light. Artificial light. No sun, moon or stars to think about philosophically, no emptiness either. He was no longer an outcast. He had a family of the lower caste that he made do with and a family of upper caste to serve happily. She even let a whimsical tune float into his mind from hers.

“Something to hum with your life gets you down between our visits.”

She smiled solemnly. If only he knew what was missing. But she’d never tell him. She was under orders.

She filled the empty space. As far as Merando was concerned, he knew all that he needed to know. He was free. Free from death. Free to serve a master who would reward him greatly with his protection. And he was human. Subordinate.

“You mustn’t forget what is true. The Law is true. Magneto’s word is Law.”

No skies, no thought, just the knowledge that he was a slave, serving with a smile. Here to make the little girls in the palace happy.

“Right Merando?”

[Desperado]

Jacob's mind accepted all that was put into it. Not like it had much of a choice, but he could never realize that. As contentment settled in on his features, his muscles relaxed a bit, but only a bit, he was still aware that she was in his mind, even if he was not aware of what she was doing inside it.

The darkness faded from his mind, leaving behind the light of truth, the Only Truth. The Truth of Magneto. Humans were inferior, and their continued existence on this earth and in his presence was only by his grace. He was inferior. But he was okay with that. Better to be inferior and in the light than inferior and in the darkness.

He hated the darkness, after all.

"Of course, Ms. Frost," he replied out loud. He didn't like telepathic communication with her. It just seemed...wrong. But he accepted it as a fact of life. She was Superior, and he was just a servant.

"Thank you, Ms. Frost," he added as he began to sit up.

[Emma Frost]

Emma lowered her hand from Merando’s temple as she let him sit up slowly. As a precaution for dizzy spells, she moved her arm behind him in case he needed support. She’d done a complete mind wipe on him and, to her dismay, she knew it might not hold. This one was strong; he’d take a lot more than just a treatment once every so often for his mind to stay in check. The problem was simply that he let his mind wander.

“Of course, my dear.”

She stood from her stool and helped guide him to the door of her office. It was almost creepy to do these tasks, to watch someone who used to be so powerful walk as a slave and a weak man. As a robot. She could almost feel the monotony in his voice and she tried no to wince.

She did her job.

Unfortunately, this meant that she, too, was only a machine. A sort of CAT scan. To Magneto, she was a glorified slave.