Commentary: Emma, we need to talk.
Commentary date: September 25, 2008
Log date: September 18, 2008
Original log: http://xmm-emma.livejournal.com/140798.html#cutid1
A clap of heels and a whiff of perfume. Sometimes, they are just as effective as trumpets and fanfare at announcing the approach of royalty. Though this royal figure would make the Royal Family blush for shame (and that's quite a feat, don't ya know?). Emma appears in the doorway to the watchpost, posing for dramatic affect just because she can. A business skirt an inch too short to be considered immodest, a jacket with no shirt... she's dressed to kill /something/. "Percival, darling, I have discovered the most delicious man."
an inch too short to be considered immodest - > Argh. Was supposed to be “an inch just shy of being considered immodest”
Percy, Percy, Percy. There is so much history wrapped up in this relationship that I never quite know how Emma is going to walk into a scene with him, and that uncertainty is actually more because there is a freedom there that she has with few people. A capricious sort of freedom. She can be silly, hot, sleepy, angry, bored, naughty, whatever without fear of Percy using the information against her. He betrayed her once, but he’s never made fun of her. Well, beyond the usual sibling-like jabs.
However, because he /has/ betrayed her once, it’s not easy to be /quite/ as open with him. Has she been openly vulnerable around him since, Percy? I can’t remember. I just know that while this may have been an act she wouldn’t have allowed many to see, it’s still an act of sorts. Instead of walking in and announcing that she’s discovered someone of interest, she wraps it up in a vampish act.
Percy sits at his desk with the tip of a pen tapping repeatedly against the accumulated papers of a folder that has left him less than pleased. Mouth pressed to a thin line, he exhales the breath of a snort as he lifts a glance at Emma over the top of his reading glasses. "Traditionally," he says, librarianish in the prim, dryness of his speech, "one isn't supposed to actually consume them." He is dressed in a suit of pinstriped black, the crisp white of his collared shirt thrown into sharp relief by the dark purple matte of his checkered tie.
I love Percy. The end.
No, really. He’s so hot when he’s being all… dry. He dresses /so/ nice, too. Yummy.
Ahem. He just totally tickled my funny bone. The player remarked on channel at this point that Percy has a totally inappropriate sense of humor. I guess I do too then.
Percy is one of the few players who consistently draw the purple out of me. There’s just something about the ebb and swell of his poses when read aloud that makes me want to match it, unconsciously. The next pose is offered as evidence of that.
Emma slides in, each step taking a long leg in a quest for the perfect patch of ground to press a toe to, then rolling the rest of her body forward like the tide. "One isn't?" she asks in lolita-like innocence. "What is one /supposed/ to do with them then?" She reaches his desk area and forces herself between him and it, a knee to the edge of his chair, body curving forward to offer just a glimpse of what Leon Alvarez of the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria was too busy oogling earlier to realize that he was actually losing his bank money in the transaction he was negotiating with Frost Enterprises. Too bad Percy never notices any more. Fucker.
For those joining us recently, Percy’s known Emma since before her days as White Queen, when she first started showing up around the Hellfire Club as one of Shaw’s trinkets. She used to sleep with his father. She then slept with him. Or was it the other way around? Anyways, his brother doesn’t like her. But Percy does! They had a very similar sense of humor in the old days, as well as perfectly enjoyable rounds of “Who can sink the other first?,” mutation-wise.
And then he went and got moral on her. And /then/ monogamous. Fucker. Now they just snark at each other like siblings.
"I believe there are some remarkable taxidermic applications." Percy frowns down at ink splotches he has managed to make on the nice clean report that has been given him, and drops both pen and pages down on the desk with an irritable flick of his wrist. Sliding his glasses up his nose with the tips of two manicured fingers, he glances back up at her again. As aggressively gay as he has chosen to be lately, certain of her characteristics are difficult to entirely overlook! "I didn't realize Harper had made off with quite so /much/ of your wardrobe," he says, bitchiness cheerful as he lounges backwards in the office chair (and partly threatens its stability with the casual, suit-rumpling drape of his torso).
See?
"Do we have any pawns in the field?" Emma asks brightly, the glint and gleam of her expression turning hard and glittery at his bitchiness. She loves him so. Really. "Poor dear. She /did/ need the fashion direction so," she purrs, following after his lounge, hands on the chair arms now, knee supporting her weight. Just because, dear.
Dang, Emma. It’s like she doesn’t expect to get anywhere with him, so she uses him as practice. And because he lets her. I love them. So much.
Tipping his head back against the seat's back, Percy arches his eyebrows as she looms. Smile twitching his mouth's curve at but one corner, he says, "You know, I think we are short on interestingly mutant taxidermists. We should really look into rectifying that." The scent of his cologne lingers close to his skin, amber and sandalwood musk hued slightly sharper and more acrid by the lingering taint of cigarette smoke. To receptive empathy, it is quite clear that he slogs through frustration, although the strew of paper and ink over the desk leaves this relatively easily deduced as well. "I suppose the bright side of any missile being used to detonate one's wardrobe is the excuse for more fashionable replacements."
Emma twists and sits down in his lap, caring not a whit for his suit or stability. "We must, because I have made a find that absolutely must be preserved. I don't know exactly what he does, but being around him was delightful."
"Being around me is delightful," Percy tells Emma solemnly. He shifts beneath her, planting his heels more firmly on the floor and looping his arm around her waist, thus to loosely clasp his fingers over her the curve of her hip. "Somehow I don't imagine that's what you're talking about right now."
It is. I must admit it is. See the easy familiarity in the embrace. It’s so easy and intimate, without being sexual. Despite Emma’s knee thing earlier. Ahem. Percy was (is?) her best friend and the reasoning goes beyond how much time they spend together now-it spans the breadth of their lives and how much change they’ve seen each other through.
"You have no idea what I'm talking about right now," Emma retorts, arranging herself somewhat more comfortably and drumming her fingers over his. "One of Bahir's subjects. Hewitt. Mutant. Like a shot of expresso." She adds a moment later, "Bad hair."
"Did you want me to put someone on him, or just make a latte out of him?" Percy's sense of humor is sometimes regrettable.
Emma wrinkles her nose and makes a face at him. "Information will do nicely, dearest. Thank you."
"Asking Bahir to snoop seems favorite, what with the confluence of events there," Percy says, his shrug partial in a shift of his spine against the back of the chair. Tipping his head up again, he gives her a slight frown. "I'll look into it. Emma, we need to talk."
La la. We love Ryan. Snoop. I'M SORRY RYAN, BUT THE HAIR LINE MADE ME LAUGH. Oh. Hey. There’s the regrettable line. OOPS. It’s still true. I love his humor. But here is the point in the log where things change. I loved the interaction up until this point because they are fun, easy, comfortable, and lazy. But there is a reason Emma made Percy Rook, despite belief to the contrary, and part of that reason is he is /good/ with the pawns. He watches out for them, and watches them. He’s got an ear to the ground in a way she doesn’t and /can’t/ really have.
"Nothing good has /ever/ followed those words," Emma groans as she pulls herself out of Percy's lap and tugs things back into place (and actually manges to find a few more inches of skirt).
"No, probably not." Percy sits forward as she pulls off his lap, palms flattened to his knees as he exhales another snort. "The Pawns are restless. There's not much to be said for Circle or balance with only one monarch. And I think their work is deteriorating, or else it really is next to impossible to find terrorist maniacs who explode buildings." Well. Maybe that /is/ kind of a bad example.
Emma looks over her shoulder at him, expression disgruntled. "I find there is /much/ to be said balance-wise with a single monarch." She turns and leans back against the desk, a crossing an ankle over the other and folding her arms in front of her. "Disperse the ones we don't need close to home."
Oh, ho! What benefit does the conflict that is an inevitable by-product of their dual monarch, dual court thing bring? Emma is actually a little baffled by the idea that he’d /prefer/ that conflict. She’s had something like eight years of it, and has lived through four different reigns (Shaw, Warren, Shaw, Erik). She’s like ‘I have been the only constant, and I’ve /proven/ that I can handle the court on my own. Why do we need to go rushing out to find someone else?’
Now, it might be construed as a little bit of Shadow King talking here. YES. SHADOW KING! Collective gasp! Thing is, though, he might be fueling the desire for control just a little, but I’d say that this is 95% Emma talking. She’s got plenty of reasons for and history supporting a preference for a lone reign. Kings have done nothing but gotten her choked and broken. Enough.
"Emma," Percy says in a mild tone, reproach reflected more in the deepening frown than in his voice as he taps his thumbs together, "as tempting as it is to merely avoid the issue forever. You know the board as you know the game. I should think you'd know it better than anyone."
"I do, Percy." Her voice reflects her attention more than her expression. It is suddenly flat and closed, while her voice drops and softens. "And I think that it is time for a /new/ game." There is a subtle shift in her body's chemical output, and anger and avarice writhe incestuously into Percy's perceptions. She stills. "I will not have another King."
I really liked the anger and avarice line. Sometimes I manage a nice image. Here is, obvious now that you ALL KNOW ABOUT SK, a pulse of his influence. His amplification of her own motives. It makes her quicker to anger, quicker to suspicion, quicker to powerplays. She’s pissed here. He dares to question her knowledge of the game? He who /she/ brought in. He who uselessly squandered his loyalty on a man who proved so dangerously unstable that /he/ originated a plot to kill him. (Adel and Percy brought the plot to /her/, ICly.) And instead of getting unstable and raging, she gets cold and flat and soft. Velvet wrapped knives, doncha know. That’s at least different than the /last/ time they assumed her unstable. Which she was. But unstable doesn’t necessarily mean wrong! Except when it leads to one’s bff getting landed in jail. Ahem.
I like playing to Percy’s mutation, but I have the hardest time doing it. It’s hard to decide what emotions would be detectably in the body’s chemistry.
The slight flare of Percy's nostrils coupled with the narrowing of his eyes, he looks at Emma quietly for a moment. Expression closed, his reserve laid over him like a cloak, he says nothing.
"A king brings nothing but strife and contention," she continues softly, ignoring the distance that grows between her Rook and her. Tension eats at the frozen facade from behind. "I will not suffer further challenges to this Court's power."
She knows he disapproves. She knows. She also doesn’t care, though SK does to the point that he’s not willing to divorce her from whatever support and power she has through her pieces. SOME DAY MAYBE! So she explains her reasoning. Though not /all/ of it, because Percy is somewhat right in the next pose.
Slowly shaking his head, Percy swivels his chair to face the scattered papers over his desk, and rests his elbows on a slim patch of its surface. "You will not suffer further challenges to yourself," he corrects, his tone soft, almost gentle. "Do not pretend this is about more than you, your past and your own scepter, Emma Frost." He glances away from the chill of her, a slight flicker of his fingers suggesting a dismissal of his own meager wisdom. "But I am not your Bishop, am I?"
This pose. Oh, this pose cut and if Emma were not Emma, she might have railed at him about the history lessons of that past. The entire court is, in the player’s opinion, nothing more than women beaters, if at a remove. Not that they had a lot of choice, I understand, and not like Emma Frost wasn’t capable of defending herself (Oh, how I relish the thought of someone ever trying that method of persuasion on Emma again after this plot. BWAHAHAHAAH. JUST TRY TO CHOKE HER, YOU BASTARDS.) But! They knew what was going on, and Percy knew from the early days of the Shaw/Emma relationship, and no one ever even said so much as a "Hold up!" So for him (and everyone) to dismiss that past so casually is like a slap in the face. Tacit approval of the methods of domination.
Emma is a bit of a hypocrite though. It /is/ about her past. And her scepter, though SK is more interested in the scepter portion of it than anything else. Everything else is just fuel for motivation.
Emma does not respond for a moment too long while the twin motives retreat back under her practiced control. The she softens like sun-softened wax, and creeps around his chair to hang her arms over his shoulders from behind. "That doesn't mean I don't value your opinion as well, darling. You handle the pawns well. What do you suggest for them?" Her voice drips honey into his ear.
softens life sun-softened wax -> /melts/ like….
SK doesn’t want to burn bridges just yet. He retreats from the defiance of Percy’s opinion and moves to manipulation here. She’s good at that. Too bad Percy knows her too well. Yet there still may be something to salvage from this conversation. Some concession she can make.
Honey in the ear -> reference to King Hamlet’s death by poison poured in his ear. It’s probably an image I overdo. OH WELL. It does set up Percy’s pose well. Head together, intimate, the juxtaposition of the lover-like closeness and their disagreement. The exchange of breath and words, almost like a parody of the vows exchanged between vassal and liege-lord.
"Balance." Percy turns his head slightly and smiles into her face, beatific with the slow sweep of his lashes over whiskeyed-dark eyes. At such proximity their breath is close enough to mingle, a shadow of the intimacy of a kiss. "The service of something greater than themselves."
Emma's breath is warm and sweet. "Then we will find something worthy of their attention," she promises, inhaling his own breath in exchange for that pledge. She pulls up and away.
Emma takes half of his response and decides to run with it because it may be enough to placate him and the pawns, and prove that they don’t /need/ another person to wade in and mess with their happy little family.
"We'll see." His voice follows her at a murmur, his gaze lowered to his hands where he has let them rest on the desk's surface. He does not quite watch her move away, lashes lowered in a dark veil over his eyes.
That's ok. She doesn't watch him at all once she turns her back and moves for the door.
Emma is almost always the one who moves away first. Some of it is usually I’m the one needing to close, so I’m the one moving it that direction, but some of it is also a power play on Emma’s part. She’s the one who initiates and closes conversations, so she is the one in control of them. She needs that sense of control. It’s just a part of who she is. She’s used to relating to people on /her/ terms, and so she’s used to controlling the conversation and interaction.