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Standing on the balcony of his chambers at Mont St Francis, Magneto looked out at the swollen sky and knew that not even his devoted acolytes would risk flying in this weather. Above him, the clouds swirled and clotted, while the air was heavy with rain. By night, there would be a storm.

Wrapping his cloak around himself, he walked back inside and returned to the fire that burnt in his hearth. Its weak flames provided him with little warmth. He remembered the campfires of the Romany people that burnt on the bleak, Polish plains in the middle of jewel-like caravans. Remembered the whickering of a horse, soft nose brushing his hand as he fed it a stolen apple. Remembered the complicated, intricate songs that uplifted and healed. Remembered the dancing, the laughter, the love. The cold citadel suddenly seemed like a prison to him - iron, order and stone, the foundations of his new world. He reached for the brandy decanter and added a finger of it to a cut, crystal glass. It was icy against his lips, burning as it slid down his throat, providing no real warmth.

"Magneto?"

He started, instantly suspicious, magnetic shield flaring. With his acolytes away on a mission, he had thought himself alone at Mont St Francis.

He turned to see a slip of girl standing in the dimly-lit doorway, dressed in a green outfit that made her look like a lily. For an instant, he thought it was a ghost, coming dancing from the fields of childhood, before recognising her as Mystique’s daughter. He had seen her with Raven when she had come before to try to strike a deal with him - her skills for the use of certain technologies in his possession. He curved his lip contemptously at the memory - did she really think a two-bit terrorist had anything to offer the Master of the Electromagnetic Fire? Naturally, he had had her unceremoniously escorted out of his citadel and her ship seen off with suitable laserfire as well. Was she going to use her daughter this time as a human bargaining-chip? How low had she sunk?

"Child?"

She stepped into the firelight and he could see that the girl was a woman. And that she was very lovely with a grave face and ancient eyes. Once, passing through Warsaw, he had seen eyes like that on a beggar once, polished by hardship and knowledge into two chips of jade.

"Ain’t a child," her smile was knowing, "As ya’ll soon find out."

Unsettled, Magnus matched his smirk to her one, intending to humor the girl before having her ejected from his chambers and hoping to discover what Raven’s true agenda was, "Really? How do you intend to prove it?"

The grin remaining on her face, she slipped a plastic gun from a holster at her hip, aimed it between his eyes and depressed the trigger. He smelt the chemical stench of plastic burning. A bright light arced towards him. In the split-second between shot and impact, before the world ceased to exist, he knew.

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[1] and [2] are both quotations from D.H Lawrence’s ‘The Revolutionary’. Obviously, their inclusion in the story means no claim of ownership on my part.