Amberlight Pt. 5
Title: Amberlight
Fandom: AU The Devil Wears Prada
Pairing: Miranda/Andy
Rating:Mature
Summary: A year after Paris, Andy has her life on track again, she's rocketing to success in her job at the Mirror and her freelance work has caused her to be taken under the wing of one of New York's elite writers. So, it's obvious that it's about time for fate to throw a wrench into the works once again.
Author's Note: I know some of you aren't going to agree with how I made the reaction, but I'll be moving during the next week and I'll have sporadic time to type out what's in my notepad and get it up here. I did want to leave you with something to tide you over. Don't worry, there's still a ways to go in the story and your questions will be answered.
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Amberlight: Part Five
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Miranda had taken control as soon as she asked Andy where she kept her electric kettle. She had directed Andy to sit on the windowsill, mentioning that being able to have the distraction of the street below would keep her from worrying over what had just happened.
Andy flippantly mentioned that wasn't it supposed to be worrying, that men breaking in weren't everyday things?
Miranda only fixed her with a look of insufferable calmness and told her to sit, watch, and stay quiet until the tea was made.
Andy had taken to the directions quickly, finding it freeing that after a moment of chaos and fear, someone had her life firmly in hand and was leading her to stable ground. As she curled up underneath a fuzzy blanket, she did glance around at her apartment's view of New York and found the fear niggling into the back of her mind while she focused on the marvel of a cityscape at night.
She didn't know how much time had passed when Miranda set down a table-tray and placed two large mugs of steaming tea, along with ...were those her secret-stashed vanilla cookies!?
Andy glanced sharply to the kitchen as Miranda primly settled opposite her on the sill. “How did you...?”
“Apartments haven't truly changed since I first arrived in New York, Andrea, it's too easy to remember where a girl stuffs her food items she doesn't want friends to nick during a get-together.”
Andy made a surprised 'huh,' sound and leaned against the sill. “So.”
Miranda arched an eyebrow. “Drink your tea.”
Andy obeyed, savoring the warmth that flowed down into her stomach. Miranda watched her quietly, her expression thoughtful.
Miranda coughed when Andy caught her looking and glanced out the window. She composed herself, then without looking back to Andy, began. “I was very young, little older than you when I first came to the city. I carried barely a week's worth of clothing, my diploma from my high school, and four hundred and twenty-two dollars and seventy-five cents in change. Most of that was my life's-savings, the rest was from my Aunt Sophie.” She reached out and took her mug, cradling it in her palms. “I started in fashion just like you had,” her lips curled into a small smile. “Assistant to the most demanding woman I had ever met. I couldn't do anything right, I just ...wasn't good enough to meet her standard of perfection.”
Andy blinked, wondering if the tea was drugged and she was hallucinating.
At her sputter, Miranda pulled away from the window and looked to her. “I learned. I adjusted, and when the time came, I did what I had to climb out of the tiny little pit of a job I held and into something more. Years passed, and I went from a hole-in-the-wall, to an apartment where I could breathe. Assistant to a junior editor. Oh, Andrea, what you could have done...”
Andy ducked her gaze. She also decided that she was hallucinating. Really badly.
“Elizabeth contacted me not long after I settled into Runway as the new editor-in-chief. The magazine was ...stable, but it wasn't a big seller nor was it really that much of a dream job: A skeleton crew, lackluster supplies, and no designer knew our name well enough to give us the time of day.”
Andy furrowed her brow, “But... that had to be over fifteen years ago. Elizabeth's younger than you, right?”
Miranda laughed. “Is that what's she's telling you? She's young? Oh, Andrea, Elizabeth's well older than I am, but we'll touch that in a little bit. Drink your tea.”
Andy shrugged, and sipped some more. Her vision needed some work. Miranda was never nice. Ever. Not even in another's bad dream.
“She took me everywhere, much like she's taken you underneath her wing now. Gatherings, charity-events, meet-and-greets with, at the time, everyone who's anyone in New York. I didn't know it but she was grooming me from the very start. I learned nearly everything I know from those days. Oh, I thought she was a goddess made flesh, she was that perfect.”
Andy knew how that felt. Her mind flashed back to Miranda descending the stairs in that sinfully crafted black dress with so much skin there for anyone to savor the sights...
“It was a little after I'd given birth to the twins when she approached me with an idea. Well, it was more of a suggestion and one I couldn't possibly refuse because, as she says, you have to be certain when you make the call ... refusal means death.” She met Andy's gaze firmly. “Andrea, I am very, very glad you left when you did. Before I could... before I would have to have...” she coughed, trailing off, her voice suddenly tight. “Well, She offered me what I wanted to offer you: Power. Prestige. The strength to survive the world of New York's elite.”
“So, she's part of a secret society?”
Miranda pursed her lips and Andy waited for the rebuke, but Miranda's expression smoothed and turned thoughtful. “You could call it that, yes. I wish you could have gone in the way it's meant to work. Not by a... mugging. Oh, your little journalistic mind would have died happy.” She laughed softly, “it starts with a private party at Elizabeth's house over the weekend, much like the one you attended. However, instead of retiring with the other, normal guests around the eleventh hour, you are kept with the main host until the clock strikes one. Then, with all the doors to the guest bedrooms locked, there can be no accidents, Andrea, it happens.”
“It?”
Miranda's smile was bittersweet. “It's not as scary as a one-on-one show that I'll have to offer...”
Andy's mind screeched to a halt and promptly dived into the gutter, staking out it's new home.
“... but it'll do. The real event is nothing short of magical and you just know that you belong there. After the gift descends over the crowd, your benefactor offers you a place with them. You are bitten, marked, and then ... surrounded by the warmth of the Pack... you can't help but to join.”
Andy blinked. “I, wait, that's what they call themselves?” She frowned. “I knew a gang of boys who called themselves the Pack. Troublemakers, Mr. Millson was always trying to get them in detention.”
Miranda rolled her eyes and glanced to Andy's mug. “Have you finished?” She took a long breath when Andy nodded. “Good. Elizabeth told me, not long after my first gathering, about what happened to those bitten and left for dead. The gift doesn't come quickly, and it's more a battle of wills. You see, it fights for control within you through your dreams and subconsciousness. In some weak-willed individuals, it doesn't come at all, finding them unworthy.”
Andy frowned, “So, what, I'm weak-willed?” What were they talking about?
“Not at all. You're having the dreams and you're able to sit here and talk as intelligently as you occasionally can be, when you put your mind to it and remove the foot from your--”
“Miranda!”
Miranda stopped, chastised, and coughed. “The tea is an herbal mixture designed for those with the Gift. It calms and soothes and keeps emotions from running rampant. Here, it'll keep what little human fear you have left at bay.”
“Wait, what?”
Miranda gulped the last of her tea. “I won't do anything before you, you haven't earned that right yet--”
“You drugged me?!”
“Andrea, don't be silly, does that feel like any drug you've known about to you?”
“Well...” Andy frowned. She felt almost too calm, but she knew that every sense was at it's most alert. She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth and shook her head. “No.”
“Exactly,” Miranda stood and her hand shook. That presence was in the air again but this time, Andy felt like an observer looking at the beasty through a really large and thick glass plate. You could see it, you could sense it, but it couldn't come after you so you could study it. Miranda looked at her and her eyes were again far too bright for any persons' eyes to be. She let out a small huff of air and turned on her heel before coming up short.
Andy had seized her wrist, tightly.
“Andrea, let go...”
“No.” Andy shook her head. “If you're not a drug-induced hallucination and this is real, I want to -see-, damn it.”
Miranda's other hand pressed over Andy's wrist and the gentle, yet very firm pressure made the reporter let go. “No, Andrea ... Andy,” she said the nickname without a hint of malice, her eyes very sure to lock gazes with the brunette. “This is not something you want to see without being properly introduced and told and groomed and prepared for it. It's also not very pretty outside of the gatherings, I'll assure you.”
“So?” Andy pouted, the tea muddling her thoughts. “Hey, you said this wasn't a drug.”
Miranda was moving towards the bedroom, her Hermes scarf discarded on a side-table. “I lied, however it'll keep you from leaping out that window when I return.”
“Oh.” Andy poked at the window with a frown. “I wouldn't jump out it, that would really hurt.” She tapped her finger on the glass and tilted her head. “Hey Miranda?” She called out when the rustling of fabric in her bedroom stopped. “What did you want to show me?”
There was no answer.
The air in the apartment was still.
Andy huffed and swung her legs out to stand up and winced, the change in perspective making her dizzy. Which, she thought, was rather odd, when she could now pick out the tiny pulls in threads on the knitted blanket tossed over the armchair. “Huh.” She made a note to bring that over to Doug later, he would know someone to fix that right up.
“Miranda?”
She walked past the entrance to the kitchen and over to the bedroom's ajar door. The light from her bedside lamp spilled out into the room, but there was no sound.
The inkling of deja vu popped into her head. The carefree relaxation of the tea didn't stop her heart from quickening it's pace, or her skin to become chilled from a cold sweat. Vaguely, the idea of all the lights on in her house and she was still a scaredy-cat came up and she shoved it back down with a scowl. She wasn't scared.
Just terrified.
Huge difference.
“Miranda?”
Andy's hand went to the doorknob and she pushed the door inward. Nothing jumped out, nothing growled, there was no evil glowy eyes staring out at her.
There was nothing in her bedroom save the giant white wolf that sat on her bed as if it was a damned queen on a throne. It calmly met her gaze with calculating blue eyes, an deciding otherworldly intelligence within them. Andy's heart thundered in her ears, but she could tell through the haze of panic that the damned thing was studying her reaction far more than any dog would, no, could ever do.
“I think I need to sit down,” Andy stated. She took a step backward and the wolf got to it's--- her feet as Andy's world went black.