Sic Transit Gloria Eburaci Novus
Backdated to Sunday night.
I really should have just left her in the park to get mugged or something. I swear, that woman...
=NYC= Central Park South - Manhattan
It's the park, and Shakespeare, if not precisely Shakespeare in the Park - a benefit for a few hundred of the richest and wealthiest in New York, with the play at times inaudible from the champagne and laughter around the edges of the grass. This is, however, no great tragedy - the play is Love's Labours Lost, and consequently any overtalk occludes only vapidity and empty words. Just now, the Princess is on the stage, declaiming to her Prince Ferdinand the terms of his exile:
"...There stay until the twelve celestial signs have brought about the annual reckoning. If this austere insociable life change not your offer made in heat of blood; if frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love, but that it bear this trial and last love - then, at the expiration of the year come challenge me, challenge me by these deserts, and, by this virgin palm now kissing thine I will be--"
That's when the lights go out - or more accurately, many of them burst in brief shatters of electric sparks and broken glass, all at once in a unison of electric popping. Worse still, it is not just the park plunged into darkness; it is the city, New York suddenly become a phantasm of black-on-black against an angry nighttime sky. Cries go up among the crowd as people try to dig for cellphones, their ruin provoking even more consternation as the sound of crashes, yells, and general hub howls through the avenues of the city.
The subsequent reaction, of course, is for people to begin groping and crawling toward each other, and toward exits. Panic is such a messy condition. Emma collects the handful of minds around her and points them all off in a different direction before backing out of the way of the general crowds and finding a bench to settle on, her head clasped between her hands. << Sebastian? >> she calls out, though the touch is tentative and weak.
Sebastian's mind reads panic - fear - concern - and frustration, too, as he pounds his cellphone-gripping hand against a tabletop. The sudden charge shoots through his psyche like black fire, and then he's turning around, trying and failing to see in the darkness. << I'm here, >> he thinks, sharp and pointed. << Where are you? >>
His mind reads like all the other normally subdued voices of the City, now rising to clamor fear and questions and irritation all at once. Sebastian's obsidian glass presence, all sharp edges and slick surfaces, is familiar and comforting. Emma wraps telepathic controls around it and pulls it closer, using her powers as a tethering lifeline for a wayward dory.
That control is irresistable, and Shaw's steps move despite himself. The ruined cellphone turns to mangled plastic and broken circuit-board in the vise of the Black King's hands as his steps bear him towards Emma, and his mind goes from generalized worry to focused hate. White looks in the darkness, and it's positively growled: "Emma," he says, the underline of vitriol snapping across the air.
"Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up," she hisses with her forehead nearly to her knees and the darkness pressing in on her. She fights to dispel memories not her own, and it takes all the focus not being used to hold back the press of minds all turned in one direction, asking one question. She releases his mind to float free among the others once he's near enough to find her, and it's another few minutes before the immediacy of the City's emotions recedes. She tucks her elbows in and holds herself until the strain eases.
Shaw waits - impatiently - for about thirty seconds of those few minutes, rocking back and forth with nervous energy from heel to hell. Frustration begins to rear its ugly head, and then perhaps fifteen seconds beyond that it snaps. The Black King's hand flashes out to slap Emma across the face - not hard, not even angrily, but /vexed/ as flesh hits flesh. "Pay attention." Shaw's voice cracks, whip-like. "Get your head out of it and stand the fuck up." A beat. "The entire city is out, and we need to go /now./"
Flesh hits flesh, and mind hits mind. Emma's head snaps to the side, and she strikes back, instinct and venom mixing a dangerous cocktail. She lowers her shields and let's the City's thoughts flood across her hyper-awareness and spill over into his mind. For a senses-reeling, blinding, choking, desperate moment, Sebastian is privy to the powers of a telepath, and the cacophony is overwhelming.
Shaw staggers back, his hand going to his head, and he reels unstably for the moment of the assault. His free hand catches the back of a folding chair, and the legs are driven like stakes into the turf as his full weight rests on it. One, two rasping breaths as he glares balefully on Emma. "Good," he says. "Now let's get moving."
Emma climbs slowly to her feet and sways unsteadily in place, then takes a deep breath and centers herself against the sudden-onset headache. She doesn't spare him a glance as she sets off down the sidewalk, angling around the groups of people still milling uncertainly, huddling together in the misapprehension that there are safety in numbers. Well, perhaps for the ungifted.
Several more deep breaths steady Shaw, who stares after Emma with a stark wish for revenge. His hand tightens and the chairback breaks before he straightens, discarding his broken cellphone to stride after Emma in an angry huff, black suit jacket flaring and flapping behind him. "Bitch," he murmurs under his breath to her as he draws up alongside her. "We need to make for the Club."
"Yes, and one you need, so either make yourself useful in /getting/ us there, or shut /up/," she snaps back, pausing for a minute to readjust her sandal straps.
Shaw stops dead. "I don't need you," he says. "You need /me/." He stares at her. "Make it through the city without passing out from that headache," he says. "I /dare/ you."
"And I dare you make it out of the /park/ without having to stop and bully someone. /Honestly/, Sebastian. Does your mutation feed on /brains/ too?"
Shaw contemplates a response to this, and various witticisms flit across his mind to be considered and discarded. He settles, finally, on something simple: "Ho," he says. "Let's get moving." He resumes his trudging, grass and mud sticking to his shoes.
"Bastard," she answers rotely, falling into step alongside him and pinching the elbow of his suit jacket to veer him in a slightly different direction.
"Where are we going, exactly?" the Black King asks his Queen archly as he trods on some sort of ornamental flower bed. "And don't say 'the Club'." As he walks, he's staring up at the sky - at the blackened surroundings. "Something's wrong about this," he comments.
"Fine. The /exit/ then," Emma replies faintly. And indeed, ahead, the sounds of a city in chaos increase ahead of them. Occasionally, a light bounces around in the darkness and disappears. "You don't think it is a simple power failure?"
"Listen." Shaw pauses, tilts his head. "What don't you hear?" he asks.
Emma stops and listens, then shakes her head and looks at Shaw. "Nothing. Just people."
"When," the Black King asks Emma, "have you heard a New York without the horns of taxicabs?" A beat. "Ever?"
They step out of the sanctuary that is Central Park and into a world of milling activity. People out of their cars, yelling, crying, talking. Broken glass and broken cars and broken people.
"...and my point is made," Shaw says with a smug smile. He sweeps the street, looking at the cars with shattered headlights, and his smile fades. "I feel," he says, hesitating. "Well." A beat. "I would say we are under attack again."
Emma slips her hand around his arm and leans in closer, staring blankly out into the dark panorama. Presently, she makes to move, pulling on his arm. "Let's go."
"Yes," Shaw says. It's a quick glance both ways as he starts to wade out into the street, attempting to cross between the dead and crashed cars - and the immediate sense that there are people watching, loitering in the ubiquitous shadows. The movement of a bike-mounted cop on the far side of the street dispels that unease, but it returns as soon as he has pedaled on.
Emma follows and leads by turn, limping along as they move from intersection to intersection, looking for signs of power in the eerie blackness that swaddles the City. They pass under an overhang, and Emma gives up the attempt to continue in her current fashionable, but not practical footwear. "Sebastian," she murmurs quietly as she leans against the building with one hand and removes her shoes with the other. << There is someone ahead of us, in that alley. I believe they intend to assault us. >>
<< That is a perfect astringent for my mood, >> Shaw thinks with a rather uncomfortable sort of delight. << Beautiful. >> He turns to eye Emma with her shoes, absently punching one hand against the brick of the building's wall. Each time, a little psychic shock runs down his spine. "Feet hurting?" he asks.
Emma sighs and rolls her eyes, sliding her finger along the strap of the second shoe and pulling it off. "/Yes/," she answers audibly and catches up. << Shall I hold your jacket, dear? >>
Shaw carefully shrugs out of it, folding it over one arm before he hands it over to Emma. << Please, >> he murmurs in all of Shere Khan's glory. "We should find you some new shoes," he says, offering his arm and preparing to step around the corner. "Perhaps--" and then he turns.
"I doubt we could find a functional store. Is this an appropriate situation for 'looting'?" She lays her hand atop his arm for the three steps before he turns, then she steps smoothly back and out of the way, and raises shaky shield higher still.
...and there he is, a man, standing in the alley, with a knife gleaming dully in his hand. "Listen," he says - his voice shaky as he points the knife at Emma. "Give me your purse." It wavers to Shaw. "And your wallet." A beat. "Now!"
Emma glances at Shaw lazily before looking back at their would-be robber. "I'm not carrying one, half-wit."
"Listen," Shaw says, eyes on the knife. He's reaching into his back pocket. "Let me just get my wallet for you..." A step forward, and the knife wavers closer to him.
"Throw it on the ground!" the mugger says. For his part, Shaw just smiles, hand emerging with the wallet inside it.
"Right," Shaw says, and now self-confidence floods his voice like the spring Nile. A tiny shake of his head. "No." He's not quite in arm's reach, now, but a swift step forward and the hand holding the wallet hits the mugger in the side of the head with jackhammer force. The man's knife moved as Shaw did, and there's a gash across the Black King's bicep - but that slash is cut short with the audible crunch of Shaw's hand impact. The man drops like a stone, and now Sebastian is shaking his hand distastefully to scatter the bits of blood that dot his knuckles.
"Feel better?" Emma asks dryly, stepping back into range and eyeing the fallen man with a small grimace of disgust. She shifts his jacket higher on her arm and grabs his flailing hand with cool fingers that slide up his arm to the gash. "I suppose this is where I tear my petticoat and bind up your wounds after anointing them with my tears and kisses?" Instead she tucks her fingers inside the slashed shirt sleeve and pulls the end off. "Here. Use this."
"Feel better?" Emma asks dryly, stepping back into range and eyeing the fallen man with a small grimace of disgust. She shifts his jacket higher on her arm and grabs his flailing hand with cool fingers that slide up his arm to the gash. "I suppose this is where I tear my petticoat and bind up your wounds after anointing them with my tears and kisses?" Instead she moves away and leans over the man, prodding him with a toe. She squats, balancing on the balls of her bare feet and considers his feet. "Sebastian. Take his shoes off."
"If you do," Shaw muses - really in much better humor - "do I get to see up your skirt?" It's a bald, lecherous grin, and then he looks back to the man on the ground. "What," he says, looking at Emma. "You're going to steal the dead man's /shoes/?"
"I might let you if you take off his shoes. Why not?" She asks looking up at him. "My feet hurt. And you can use his sock."
With a sly smile on his face, Sebastian hunkers over, unlacing the man's converses to drag the sneakers from his feet. "Well," he says. "We're lucky this guy has small feet." The sock is left alone, though he does take a portion of the dead man's shirt to dab at his arm, frowning. "I can't believe," he says, "that I have to do this myself."
"Do what, darling?" She swings the shoes toward her by their laces and grimaces. "I don't suppose you would let me have your socks?"
"Bandage my own cut," Shaw gripes. "Here I go saving you from a mugger..." He raises one leg. "...saving you from a mugger and giving you my socks, and not only do I not get a kiss or a titillating flash of leg the beautiful maiden doesn't even tend to my wound." A sock is peeled off, and then the Black King's foot is replaced in his shoe as he begins to repeat the process. "And you wonder why chivalry is dead."
Emma smiles in the first bit of true gratitude she's shown in quite a while and she falls backwards to sit on the pavement. "You /are/ a prince." She snatches the socks away and slides them on her feet, putting a little show into it , just for him. Socks donned, and feet shoved into the sneakers, she climbs back to her feet.
Shaw offers a hand to Emma in aid up. "No, my dear," he responds in a low purr. "I'm not. I am the King."
Emma mmms and releases his hand as soon as she's on her feet. "Well, King. I suppose we should continue, no?"
Shaw makes a mockery of a little courtly bow. "What?" he asks. "No kiss?" The question is delivered seriously, but even as he says it Shaw is beginning to walk again, cutting through the alley with the intention of emerging on the other side.
"You had the flash of leg," Emma points out. Their progress through the alley is unhindered now, and they emerge on a quieter street. The sounds of the other areas of the city can still be heard, however, including one that is long out of time. A horse's neigh. Emma stops in the mouth of the alley, directly in front of Sebastian, and freezes.
"All I need for that, my Queen," Shaw says, "is my dreams." He comes up directly behind her, and - taking advantage of his position - decides to put arms around her waist. "I want more." The sound of the horse, though, is drawing his curiousity as well.
A mounted police officer (Percy's police officer), rounds the corner, and Emma's eyes go wide. "Oh, /perfect/!" So delighted is she with this unexpected boon, that she doesn't even protest Sebastian's liberties. "Transportation."
"Transportation?" Shaw asks, incredulously, his hands looping on Emma's stomach. "You want to ride a /horse/ back to the Club?" It's a low chuckle, delivered just at the White Queen's ear. "Taking chivalry a little far, aren't we?"
"Do you want to /walk/ all the way back? I do believe we're still six or seven /miles/ from the Clubhouse," Emma retorts, eyes fixed in positive avarice on the approaching horse and rider. Emma lowers her shields slightly and sends a delicate whisp of power out to tickle at the officer's mind. He begins to slow.
"I'm to be the gallant knight, then," Shaw says. "Tell me," he asks. "Are you going to ride sidesaddle?" He steps out, largely blocking the policeman's path. Sometimes, one does not telepathy to slow a man down.
"Sebastian!" Emma exclaims as the officer pulls up sharply on the reigns and calls out "Woah, you there!" The horse rears, and she throws her hands up in exasperation and wraps blinding telepathic hands around the officer's senses, then plunging him into unconsciousness with a sharp motion.
The Black King watches dispassionately as the policeman slumps over the horse, but his expression sets as the horse - perhaps understandably - begins to panic a little, starting forward at a trot towards Shaw. "Oh," he says to the animal. "No, you don't."
The man slumps and slides off the side. Ouch. "Oh, stop fooling around, Sebastian. Let's go," Emma chides from behind him.
There are many ways to deal with horses, most condemned by PETA, some condemned by the SPCA, and others condemned almost universally. Shaw's close-fisted blow to the middle of the horse's forehead falls rather unconditionally in category three - but it is also sufficient to knock the horse back and half-down, like a trained Arabian doing a sit. As it struggles back to its feet Shaw grabs the reins, pulling its head down close, and slowly the creature calms. "After you," he says to Emma.
This time, his name is exclaimed in shocked horror. "Damnit, Sebastian. Do you know /anything/ about subtlety?" She approaches the creature quietly and, while not quite directly communicating with it, adds her own emanations of comfort and calming. She does /not/ ride sidesaddle, and Sebastian gets another view of well-shaped leg as she bunches her skirt up around her thighs and climbs up.
"Yes," Shaw says sourly. "Because when the entire city is rioting and without power, that's the time for the velvet fucking glove." He shakes his head. "Scoot back," he says, intending on mounting the horse in front of Emma.
"I am /not/ hanging off the horse's ass just because /you/ can't sit closer to the horn than I can," Emma snaps, scooting up a bit to do just that.
The leg goes up and over, and Shaw settles with practiced ease in the saddle. He does not, however, give up control so willingly - he bumps Emma closer still to the horn, attempting to reach around her for the reins.
Emma winces and lean forward over horn, her hands grabbing the knob. "Ow. I said /closer/, not /on/ it," she snaps, making no attempt to reach for the reigns. Of course, she makes no attempt to help him reach them either.
"Fine," Shaw murmurs, letting up a little. "And," he acknowledges to her hair, "fair." The reins are finally fetched, and the Black King's arms flick them to start the horse moving before they settle around the White Queen's waist again. "And you thought those afternoons riding with our dear Saint Grey were useless," he quips.
I really should have just left her in the park to get mugged or something. I swear, that woman...
=NYC= Central Park South - Manhattan
It's the park, and Shakespeare, if not precisely Shakespeare in the Park - a benefit for a few hundred of the richest and wealthiest in New York, with the play at times inaudible from the champagne and laughter around the edges of the grass. This is, however, no great tragedy - the play is Love's Labours Lost, and consequently any overtalk occludes only vapidity and empty words. Just now, the Princess is on the stage, declaiming to her Prince Ferdinand the terms of his exile:
"...There stay until the twelve celestial signs have brought about the annual reckoning. If this austere insociable life change not your offer made in heat of blood; if frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love, but that it bear this trial and last love - then, at the expiration of the year come challenge me, challenge me by these deserts, and, by this virgin palm now kissing thine I will be--"
That's when the lights go out - or more accurately, many of them burst in brief shatters of electric sparks and broken glass, all at once in a unison of electric popping. Worse still, it is not just the park plunged into darkness; it is the city, New York suddenly become a phantasm of black-on-black against an angry nighttime sky. Cries go up among the crowd as people try to dig for cellphones, their ruin provoking even more consternation as the sound of crashes, yells, and general hub howls through the avenues of the city.
The subsequent reaction, of course, is for people to begin groping and crawling toward each other, and toward exits. Panic is such a messy condition. Emma collects the handful of minds around her and points them all off in a different direction before backing out of the way of the general crowds and finding a bench to settle on, her head clasped between her hands. << Sebastian? >> she calls out, though the touch is tentative and weak.
Sebastian's mind reads panic - fear - concern - and frustration, too, as he pounds his cellphone-gripping hand against a tabletop. The sudden charge shoots through his psyche like black fire, and then he's turning around, trying and failing to see in the darkness. << I'm here, >> he thinks, sharp and pointed. << Where are you? >>
His mind reads like all the other normally subdued voices of the City, now rising to clamor fear and questions and irritation all at once. Sebastian's obsidian glass presence, all sharp edges and slick surfaces, is familiar and comforting. Emma wraps telepathic controls around it and pulls it closer, using her powers as a tethering lifeline for a wayward dory.
That control is irresistable, and Shaw's steps move despite himself. The ruined cellphone turns to mangled plastic and broken circuit-board in the vise of the Black King's hands as his steps bear him towards Emma, and his mind goes from generalized worry to focused hate. White looks in the darkness, and it's positively growled: "Emma," he says, the underline of vitriol snapping across the air.
"Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up," she hisses with her forehead nearly to her knees and the darkness pressing in on her. She fights to dispel memories not her own, and it takes all the focus not being used to hold back the press of minds all turned in one direction, asking one question. She releases his mind to float free among the others once he's near enough to find her, and it's another few minutes before the immediacy of the City's emotions recedes. She tucks her elbows in and holds herself until the strain eases.
Shaw waits - impatiently - for about thirty seconds of those few minutes, rocking back and forth with nervous energy from heel to hell. Frustration begins to rear its ugly head, and then perhaps fifteen seconds beyond that it snaps. The Black King's hand flashes out to slap Emma across the face - not hard, not even angrily, but /vexed/ as flesh hits flesh. "Pay attention." Shaw's voice cracks, whip-like. "Get your head out of it and stand the fuck up." A beat. "The entire city is out, and we need to go /now./"
Flesh hits flesh, and mind hits mind. Emma's head snaps to the side, and she strikes back, instinct and venom mixing a dangerous cocktail. She lowers her shields and let's the City's thoughts flood across her hyper-awareness and spill over into his mind. For a senses-reeling, blinding, choking, desperate moment, Sebastian is privy to the powers of a telepath, and the cacophony is overwhelming.
Shaw staggers back, his hand going to his head, and he reels unstably for the moment of the assault. His free hand catches the back of a folding chair, and the legs are driven like stakes into the turf as his full weight rests on it. One, two rasping breaths as he glares balefully on Emma. "Good," he says. "Now let's get moving."
Emma climbs slowly to her feet and sways unsteadily in place, then takes a deep breath and centers herself against the sudden-onset headache. She doesn't spare him a glance as she sets off down the sidewalk, angling around the groups of people still milling uncertainly, huddling together in the misapprehension that there are safety in numbers. Well, perhaps for the ungifted.
Several more deep breaths steady Shaw, who stares after Emma with a stark wish for revenge. His hand tightens and the chairback breaks before he straightens, discarding his broken cellphone to stride after Emma in an angry huff, black suit jacket flaring and flapping behind him. "Bitch," he murmurs under his breath to her as he draws up alongside her. "We need to make for the Club."
"Yes, and one you need, so either make yourself useful in /getting/ us there, or shut /up/," she snaps back, pausing for a minute to readjust her sandal straps.
Shaw stops dead. "I don't need you," he says. "You need /me/." He stares at her. "Make it through the city without passing out from that headache," he says. "I /dare/ you."
"And I dare you make it out of the /park/ without having to stop and bully someone. /Honestly/, Sebastian. Does your mutation feed on /brains/ too?"
Shaw contemplates a response to this, and various witticisms flit across his mind to be considered and discarded. He settles, finally, on something simple: "Ho," he says. "Let's get moving." He resumes his trudging, grass and mud sticking to his shoes.
"Bastard," she answers rotely, falling into step alongside him and pinching the elbow of his suit jacket to veer him in a slightly different direction.
"Where are we going, exactly?" the Black King asks his Queen archly as he trods on some sort of ornamental flower bed. "And don't say 'the Club'." As he walks, he's staring up at the sky - at the blackened surroundings. "Something's wrong about this," he comments.
"Fine. The /exit/ then," Emma replies faintly. And indeed, ahead, the sounds of a city in chaos increase ahead of them. Occasionally, a light bounces around in the darkness and disappears. "You don't think it is a simple power failure?"
"Listen." Shaw pauses, tilts his head. "What don't you hear?" he asks.
Emma stops and listens, then shakes her head and looks at Shaw. "Nothing. Just people."
"When," the Black King asks Emma, "have you heard a New York without the horns of taxicabs?" A beat. "Ever?"
They step out of the sanctuary that is Central Park and into a world of milling activity. People out of their cars, yelling, crying, talking. Broken glass and broken cars and broken people.
"...and my point is made," Shaw says with a smug smile. He sweeps the street, looking at the cars with shattered headlights, and his smile fades. "I feel," he says, hesitating. "Well." A beat. "I would say we are under attack again."
Emma slips her hand around his arm and leans in closer, staring blankly out into the dark panorama. Presently, she makes to move, pulling on his arm. "Let's go."
"Yes," Shaw says. It's a quick glance both ways as he starts to wade out into the street, attempting to cross between the dead and crashed cars - and the immediate sense that there are people watching, loitering in the ubiquitous shadows. The movement of a bike-mounted cop on the far side of the street dispels that unease, but it returns as soon as he has pedaled on.
Emma follows and leads by turn, limping along as they move from intersection to intersection, looking for signs of power in the eerie blackness that swaddles the City. They pass under an overhang, and Emma gives up the attempt to continue in her current fashionable, but not practical footwear. "Sebastian," she murmurs quietly as she leans against the building with one hand and removes her shoes with the other. << There is someone ahead of us, in that alley. I believe they intend to assault us. >>
<< That is a perfect astringent for my mood, >> Shaw thinks with a rather uncomfortable sort of delight. << Beautiful. >> He turns to eye Emma with her shoes, absently punching one hand against the brick of the building's wall. Each time, a little psychic shock runs down his spine. "Feet hurting?" he asks.
Emma sighs and rolls her eyes, sliding her finger along the strap of the second shoe and pulling it off. "/Yes/," she answers audibly and catches up. << Shall I hold your jacket, dear? >>
Shaw carefully shrugs out of it, folding it over one arm before he hands it over to Emma. << Please, >> he murmurs in all of Shere Khan's glory. "We should find you some new shoes," he says, offering his arm and preparing to step around the corner. "Perhaps--" and then he turns.
"I doubt we could find a functional store. Is this an appropriate situation for 'looting'?" She lays her hand atop his arm for the three steps before he turns, then she steps smoothly back and out of the way, and raises shaky shield higher still.
...and there he is, a man, standing in the alley, with a knife gleaming dully in his hand. "Listen," he says - his voice shaky as he points the knife at Emma. "Give me your purse." It wavers to Shaw. "And your wallet." A beat. "Now!"
Emma glances at Shaw lazily before looking back at their would-be robber. "I'm not carrying one, half-wit."
"Listen," Shaw says, eyes on the knife. He's reaching into his back pocket. "Let me just get my wallet for you..." A step forward, and the knife wavers closer to him.
"Throw it on the ground!" the mugger says. For his part, Shaw just smiles, hand emerging with the wallet inside it.
"Right," Shaw says, and now self-confidence floods his voice like the spring Nile. A tiny shake of his head. "No." He's not quite in arm's reach, now, but a swift step forward and the hand holding the wallet hits the mugger in the side of the head with jackhammer force. The man's knife moved as Shaw did, and there's a gash across the Black King's bicep - but that slash is cut short with the audible crunch of Shaw's hand impact. The man drops like a stone, and now Sebastian is shaking his hand distastefully to scatter the bits of blood that dot his knuckles.
"Feel better?" Emma asks dryly, stepping back into range and eyeing the fallen man with a small grimace of disgust. She shifts his jacket higher on her arm and grabs his flailing hand with cool fingers that slide up his arm to the gash. "I suppose this is where I tear my petticoat and bind up your wounds after anointing them with my tears and kisses?" Instead she tucks her fingers inside the slashed shirt sleeve and pulls the end off. "Here. Use this."
"Feel better?" Emma asks dryly, stepping back into range and eyeing the fallen man with a small grimace of disgust. She shifts his jacket higher on her arm and grabs his flailing hand with cool fingers that slide up his arm to the gash. "I suppose this is where I tear my petticoat and bind up your wounds after anointing them with my tears and kisses?" Instead she moves away and leans over the man, prodding him with a toe. She squats, balancing on the balls of her bare feet and considers his feet. "Sebastian. Take his shoes off."
"If you do," Shaw muses - really in much better humor - "do I get to see up your skirt?" It's a bald, lecherous grin, and then he looks back to the man on the ground. "What," he says, looking at Emma. "You're going to steal the dead man's /shoes/?"
"I might let you if you take off his shoes. Why not?" She asks looking up at him. "My feet hurt. And you can use his sock."
With a sly smile on his face, Sebastian hunkers over, unlacing the man's converses to drag the sneakers from his feet. "Well," he says. "We're lucky this guy has small feet." The sock is left alone, though he does take a portion of the dead man's shirt to dab at his arm, frowning. "I can't believe," he says, "that I have to do this myself."
"Do what, darling?" She swings the shoes toward her by their laces and grimaces. "I don't suppose you would let me have your socks?"
"Bandage my own cut," Shaw gripes. "Here I go saving you from a mugger..." He raises one leg. "...saving you from a mugger and giving you my socks, and not only do I not get a kiss or a titillating flash of leg the beautiful maiden doesn't even tend to my wound." A sock is peeled off, and then the Black King's foot is replaced in his shoe as he begins to repeat the process. "And you wonder why chivalry is dead."
Emma smiles in the first bit of true gratitude she's shown in quite a while and she falls backwards to sit on the pavement. "You /are/ a prince." She snatches the socks away and slides them on her feet, putting a little show into it , just for him. Socks donned, and feet shoved into the sneakers, she climbs back to her feet.
Shaw offers a hand to Emma in aid up. "No, my dear," he responds in a low purr. "I'm not. I am the King."
Emma mmms and releases his hand as soon as she's on her feet. "Well, King. I suppose we should continue, no?"
Shaw makes a mockery of a little courtly bow. "What?" he asks. "No kiss?" The question is delivered seriously, but even as he says it Shaw is beginning to walk again, cutting through the alley with the intention of emerging on the other side.
"You had the flash of leg," Emma points out. Their progress through the alley is unhindered now, and they emerge on a quieter street. The sounds of the other areas of the city can still be heard, however, including one that is long out of time. A horse's neigh. Emma stops in the mouth of the alley, directly in front of Sebastian, and freezes.
"All I need for that, my Queen," Shaw says, "is my dreams." He comes up directly behind her, and - taking advantage of his position - decides to put arms around her waist. "I want more." The sound of the horse, though, is drawing his curiousity as well.
A mounted police officer (Percy's police officer), rounds the corner, and Emma's eyes go wide. "Oh, /perfect/!" So delighted is she with this unexpected boon, that she doesn't even protest Sebastian's liberties. "Transportation."
"Transportation?" Shaw asks, incredulously, his hands looping on Emma's stomach. "You want to ride a /horse/ back to the Club?" It's a low chuckle, delivered just at the White Queen's ear. "Taking chivalry a little far, aren't we?"
"Do you want to /walk/ all the way back? I do believe we're still six or seven /miles/ from the Clubhouse," Emma retorts, eyes fixed in positive avarice on the approaching horse and rider. Emma lowers her shields slightly and sends a delicate whisp of power out to tickle at the officer's mind. He begins to slow.
"I'm to be the gallant knight, then," Shaw says. "Tell me," he asks. "Are you going to ride sidesaddle?" He steps out, largely blocking the policeman's path. Sometimes, one does not telepathy to slow a man down.
"Sebastian!" Emma exclaims as the officer pulls up sharply on the reigns and calls out "Woah, you there!" The horse rears, and she throws her hands up in exasperation and wraps blinding telepathic hands around the officer's senses, then plunging him into unconsciousness with a sharp motion.
The Black King watches dispassionately as the policeman slumps over the horse, but his expression sets as the horse - perhaps understandably - begins to panic a little, starting forward at a trot towards Shaw. "Oh," he says to the animal. "No, you don't."
The man slumps and slides off the side. Ouch. "Oh, stop fooling around, Sebastian. Let's go," Emma chides from behind him.
There are many ways to deal with horses, most condemned by PETA, some condemned by the SPCA, and others condemned almost universally. Shaw's close-fisted blow to the middle of the horse's forehead falls rather unconditionally in category three - but it is also sufficient to knock the horse back and half-down, like a trained Arabian doing a sit. As it struggles back to its feet Shaw grabs the reins, pulling its head down close, and slowly the creature calms. "After you," he says to Emma.
This time, his name is exclaimed in shocked horror. "Damnit, Sebastian. Do you know /anything/ about subtlety?" She approaches the creature quietly and, while not quite directly communicating with it, adds her own emanations of comfort and calming. She does /not/ ride sidesaddle, and Sebastian gets another view of well-shaped leg as she bunches her skirt up around her thighs and climbs up.
"Yes," Shaw says sourly. "Because when the entire city is rioting and without power, that's the time for the velvet fucking glove." He shakes his head. "Scoot back," he says, intending on mounting the horse in front of Emma.
"I am /not/ hanging off the horse's ass just because /you/ can't sit closer to the horn than I can," Emma snaps, scooting up a bit to do just that.
The leg goes up and over, and Shaw settles with practiced ease in the saddle. He does not, however, give up control so willingly - he bumps Emma closer still to the horn, attempting to reach around her for the reins.
Emma winces and lean forward over horn, her hands grabbing the knob. "Ow. I said /closer/, not /on/ it," she snaps, making no attempt to reach for the reigns. Of course, she makes no attempt to help him reach them either.
"Fine," Shaw murmurs, letting up a little. "And," he acknowledges to her hair, "fair." The reins are finally fetched, and the Black King's arms flick them to start the horse moving before they settle around the White Queen's waist again. "And you thought those afternoons riding with our dear Saint Grey were useless," he quips.