Exhausted Rose looked out the window to where Lorna and Rahne were. Rahne was sitting in Lorna's lap and allowing her to braid her long, thick brown hair. Lorna, her hair wrapped in a way that was reminiscent of a turban, sat cross-legged on the grass. It was black, as were her clothes. When she had first seen her Lorna had dressed in a myriad of colors. Now it was only black.
She sighed. It had been a hard few months for them. First Susanna had died in a car crash. Lorna had been with Rose at the time, so Rose had gotten to see how she screamed and cried when she received the phone call. It caused her to lose control of her powers, nearly destroying the facility. Luckily Rose was able to calm her down before anyone got hurt.
Then she'd heard that Susanna had listed her as Lorna's primary caregiver in her will. It shocked Rose; she had only known Susanna for a few months. They were friends, but surely someone else had closer ties? Upon closer investigation it turned out that no, no one did. Susanna's mother had died during childbirth and her father died when Lorna was four. As for friends Susanna had been somewhat solitary due to Lorna's mutation.
The funeral was held the next week. It poorly attended, proof to how few people they'd known. The few people there seemed the primary motive in Susanna leaving Lorna in her care. Susanna's other motive, shown by a note in the will, was that she thought that Rose would be able to best understand and help Lorna.
Feeling strange she had welcomed Lorna into her home, although the girl was understandably upset. There would be periods where she lost control again and Rose or Rahne would have to run to her side. They would always know because objects would start rattling which made it dangerous for them to be around her. It was disturbing to see the quiet girl Rose had come to know flailing in her sleep.
During the day Rahne was able to pull her out of her shell a little more. The two girls had a close bond. Rose simply stood by and tried to be understanding. One week ago she'd tentatively given her a leather-bound journal. Rose had held it out to her one morning at breakfast. Lorna stared at its worn cover for a few minutes before looking up at Rose questioningly.
"It…it's an account of your mother's life," Rose explained, "She put it with the lawyer. She said she'd never told you much about what her childhood had been like or anything at all about your father. It might have been too painful for her to just say."
With big eyes Lorna nodded.
"And the note that came with it said she didn't want to mess it up, so she wrote it down. She was going to give it to you when you were older."
Lorna had taken the journal with trembling hands. She'd ran over the cover, tracing the letters that were burned into the leather.
"Polaris," she read.
The girl had looked up, her eyes swimming with tears.
"It was her old nickname for me. She said I was her guiding star," Lorna said.
She'd burst into tears and Rose had put an arm around her. That had been Lorna's last outburst. Sometimes she'd see her reading it and, despite herself, felt curiosity about its contents. None of them knew much about Susanna except she'd been a good woman who'd loved her daughter. Really that was all that mattered, but Rose did still wonder sometimes.
Her only conversation with Susanna that had shed some light on her past had come two weeks before her death.
"You've helped me so much over the past few weeks," Rose had said, "I can't thank you enough. I'm so glad that you documented the progression of Lorna's mutation."
"It was all I could do," Susanna shrugged, "I just wanted her to be able to live with it, to somehow use it as a force of good in her life. But there was an incident with knives where…where she ended up nearly stabbing herself."
"I'm so sorry."
Susanna looked down.
"She was eight and it scared her badly," she said, "I got her involved in dance and gymnastics to try and give herself something about her that she could control."
"Sounds like a good idea," Rose said, "I'll have to try that with Rahne."
"It did seem to work," Susanna said, "But I think she's still afraid and I hope she won't live her life in fear. I try to let her know that I see her as a beautiful girl who's special but-"
"It's hard," finished Rose, "I'm having the same problem with Rahne. Craig really messed with her mind. I'd like to smack him and whoever left her with him. No kid deserves that."
Her friend nodded. Rose hesitated; her next line of inquiry was incredibly delicate and she didn't want to mess things up.
"I um…ran into a slight roadblock while working on Lorna's DNA," said Rose, "and I was wondering…since I have your blood sample, if you could tell me-"
"You're going to ask about Lorna's father, aren't you?" Susanna asked, grimacing.
Rose winced. That had gone well. Susanna narrowed her eyes.
"I knew you'd ask eventually. If you must know," she said, "I was eighteen and in love. No, we weren't married. No, I'm not a tramp. We weren't really intimate, just a few times-"
"I'm not judging you," said Rose quickly, "I mean, I was married without love. Makes sense to me that you can have love without being married. This is purely for data."
Susanna looked surprised.
"I've hypothesized that the mutation might be carried on the Y chromosome," continued Rose, "I'm sure I could confirm it and it would really help us understand mutations."
She took a deep breath.
"What you say about a few times makes sense too. I think the gene wants to be passed on and it's strong. That allows it to leap barriers," said Rose, "But if any of that's to be proved then I need cases where that happened."
Pausing she shuffled her folders again.
"I just want to know if Lorna's father exhibited any form of a mutation."
Susanna closed her eyes, like she was concentrating. Then she shook her head.
"No."
"Are you sure?" asked Rose.
"I'm positive. It's not like you can hide something like that from someone you spent every day with for years," said Susanna.
"Alright, the subject is closed," Rose said.
There was a shriek from outside. Rose's eyes focused back to teh presentand she looked back at the girls. Rahne had crawled out of Lorna's lap and started running away. Lorna got to her feet, laughing, and chased after her. It was good to see her laughing again. It was good that they had met each other; other mutants that could convince them that what they had was natural.
Walking over to her desk she took out one of the folders and opened it. Rifling through she found the application that she had placed inside of it, along with a picture clipped to it. At the moment she felt proud. They'd soon have even more evidence of this widespread gene. She had no reason to be apprehensive. After all, she didn't know that accepting the application was the greatest mistake of her life.
"So, Regan is now Black Rook," said Emma.
Jason sighed in contentment. Emma tilted her head at him as they walked through the halls together.
"And I assume your plans to be Black King are going ahead?" she asked.
He nodded.
"You were right when you said I needed more power before I could defeat the current holder and take the position. I don't think the Queen will go down easy either," he said, "Which is why I will have to use all of my abilities and allies. Both my daughters will fight by my side. We simply need a power boost."
"So you've said," Emma pointed out, "And what's this power boost?"
"Oh, our powers of illusion are creations half in the physical realm and half in the psychic," said Jason, "But both can be enhanced by the use of cosmic energy. We simply need to inject ourselves with it. Like a…vitamin shot if you will."
She threw her head back and laughed.
"What, you just have a whole bunch of cosmic energy lying around?" asked Emma.
He smiled.
"No, but I have some theories on where to find it," he said, "Just stay tuned for developments my dear Queen."
Jason cocked his head.
"By the way," he said, "I've had some thoughts about Megan. Perhaps she could be useful one day after all."
"Oh?" asked Emma, "What made you decide that?"
"She is my daughter; she must be bound for greatness somehow," shrugged Jason.
She resisted the urge to punch him. In her experience men's greatest weakness was their ego. It made them easy to manipulate but also insufferable to be around.
"I was considering begging your favor to make her your page," said Jason, "If anyone could beat some sense into her it would be you."
Outwardly she smiled at the flattery; it was part of her glittering White Queen facade, the same was wearing white all the time. She'd built it around her like a shield, letting Emma look out of it when she could afford it. So it was Emma who made a face. She caught the connotations perfectly; he was too lazy to help his daughter. What a dreadful father. It was then that she decided that she hated the man next to her. However, she hated most of her 'friends'.
Still Emma had a soft spot for children. The White Queen facade despised the little pests, but Emma liked them. It might be nice to indulge Emma every now and then.
"I'll take it into consideration," Emma said.