Precipitation
It's overcast, and the humidity is up. The temperature, too, somewhat. The shower promised for today might happen, after all. I wonder if it will turn to snow on the way down: crystals precipitating out of the solution of chilled wet air.
The windows of my office are still clear, though. I can see, from where I sit at the desk with my back to the wall and my bedroom behind it, the traffic flowing up and down Fifth Avenue and the stark fingers of Central Park's denuded trees reaching for that grey, heavy, pregnant sky.
I think I'm better. Whatever that means for a person like me, with a life like mine.
I can make a proper tally of the symptoms and evaluate them for progress. My mind is as clear as the windows; my thoughts are those promised raindrops contracting and blooming into pristine crystalline perfection as they sift down from the clouds of memory and emotion. I can think. I can plan. I can reason. I am firm on mental feet there, as I am firm on my physical ones, too, again, finally, and the stronger for it, I can only imagine.
That which does not kill you . . .
Jean Grey didn't. Jason Wyngarde didn't. I am alive, and they are gone. They are in hiding, and I am - not.
Dr. Wittenberg is cautiously satisfied with my progress, too. The check-up yesterday should be the last one for a while, barring another flare-up of the gout. My knee is still tender, but I'm resting it, soaking it in the bath, and eating blueberries until my teeth and tongue go permanently cyanotic. He's on call for another shot if I need it. I don't think I will. The problem is manageable, and since I'm going to be managing it the rest of my life, I should get used to doing so, hm?
Standing on my own two feet, as it should be, even if I wobble now and then from a cranky right knee.
The dreams are wisping away into the familiar nocturnal oblivion. Snatches of color, image, emotion, but nothing lasting. Nothing scarring. I broke their back by leaving town, I'm sure of it, and I'm refusing to give them any further quarter. I can master my mind, for all that I have only mundane skills in hand. Let the telepaths, the empaths, the illusionists have their pretty mental shows. The physical is real; the physical lasts. I know it in my bones, and they don't break any more than my mind does.
They didn't kill me. They hurt me, but I survived. And I learned, and oh, if we ever meet again, treacherous woman or impudent boy . . .
"Debt's come due," Linden? I can give you debt, and I can give you payment in full. Don't press me. Don't push me. Don't plead with me - we're both above and beyond that, and it serves us both ill. I'll see her if I want to see her again, now that you've found her for me, and in the meantime, she can rot in her self-imposed exile. Punish herself for being human. How does a fallen saint try to sanctify herself?
I should have a hairshirt, thick and ugly, woven from scratchy goat-hair in the proper tradition, left on her clinic's doorstep. With a note: I hope I guessed your size correctly. Wear it well. You've earned it. From your obedient servant, Sebastian.
I'll think about it.
And Wyngarde? Precious poppet. Someone more dangerous than I did find you in the city, didn't she? You would have been better off falling under my fist than under her moral sway. Still, it's best that he leaves as he seems to be doing. Bear the infection out of my Circle - our Circle. There's no room for him here; he'd only be a distraction at best and an active hindrance at worst.
Our Circle. Oh, Emma. My Bishop and our pawn have served you well, all unknowing. Bahir al-Razi knows how to undo the block on the White Queen's power? If he and his brother combined theirs, perhaps . . . but do I tell her?
Do I not tell her? What do I want from her, with her, for her?
The windows are still clear, but now my mind- Well. It never lasts, but it always comes back, that precipitated calm. Ride out the surge of emotions; let their clouds hover, threaten, and then unbind themselves, dissipating into clear, cold sky again.
I need to talk to her, regardless. Wide Awake waits, damnable project threatening like the clouds. The Circle's swelled ranks, which need careful trimming in the wake of a phoenix's shattering apocalypse.
And I need to get back to work. Mercheson's proposal is tempting, but I don't trust it, probably for that very reason: she knows I want a deal, and she knows I need it. If only I could get someone on the inside over there, scout her true intentions, then I'd feel more comfortable going into our next meeting. I don't have the information I need, and I don't have the tools I'd normally use to get it, with Linden's preoccupation with the sales off-site tomorrow and whatever tremble that traitor put into his ethics and his loyalty to me. To me! He won't forget what we've done and what we've been to each other. He can't. So, I'll wait for this, too, to pass, and I'll consider what other tools I have-
Ah.
Hm.
I wonder. I do wonder how Zoe McMillan's problem is working itself out. I wonder how grateful to me she's feeling.
Still cloudy outside, and clear again in here. I know what to do. I always do. Just give me enough time, push me enough - I get the job done, as always, as always.
I'm better.
The windows of my office are still clear, though. I can see, from where I sit at the desk with my back to the wall and my bedroom behind it, the traffic flowing up and down Fifth Avenue and the stark fingers of Central Park's denuded trees reaching for that grey, heavy, pregnant sky.
I think I'm better. Whatever that means for a person like me, with a life like mine.
I can make a proper tally of the symptoms and evaluate them for progress. My mind is as clear as the windows; my thoughts are those promised raindrops contracting and blooming into pristine crystalline perfection as they sift down from the clouds of memory and emotion. I can think. I can plan. I can reason. I am firm on mental feet there, as I am firm on my physical ones, too, again, finally, and the stronger for it, I can only imagine.
That which does not kill you . . .
Jean Grey didn't. Jason Wyngarde didn't. I am alive, and they are gone. They are in hiding, and I am - not.
Dr. Wittenberg is cautiously satisfied with my progress, too. The check-up yesterday should be the last one for a while, barring another flare-up of the gout. My knee is still tender, but I'm resting it, soaking it in the bath, and eating blueberries until my teeth and tongue go permanently cyanotic. He's on call for another shot if I need it. I don't think I will. The problem is manageable, and since I'm going to be managing it the rest of my life, I should get used to doing so, hm?
Standing on my own two feet, as it should be, even if I wobble now and then from a cranky right knee.
The dreams are wisping away into the familiar nocturnal oblivion. Snatches of color, image, emotion, but nothing lasting. Nothing scarring. I broke their back by leaving town, I'm sure of it, and I'm refusing to give them any further quarter. I can master my mind, for all that I have only mundane skills in hand. Let the telepaths, the empaths, the illusionists have their pretty mental shows. The physical is real; the physical lasts. I know it in my bones, and they don't break any more than my mind does.
They didn't kill me. They hurt me, but I survived. And I learned, and oh, if we ever meet again, treacherous woman or impudent boy . . .
"Debt's come due," Linden? I can give you debt, and I can give you payment in full. Don't press me. Don't push me. Don't plead with me - we're both above and beyond that, and it serves us both ill. I'll see her if I want to see her again, now that you've found her for me, and in the meantime, she can rot in her self-imposed exile. Punish herself for being human. How does a fallen saint try to sanctify herself?
I should have a hairshirt, thick and ugly, woven from scratchy goat-hair in the proper tradition, left on her clinic's doorstep. With a note: I hope I guessed your size correctly. Wear it well. You've earned it. From your obedient servant, Sebastian.
I'll think about it.
And Wyngarde? Precious poppet. Someone more dangerous than I did find you in the city, didn't she? You would have been better off falling under my fist than under her moral sway. Still, it's best that he leaves as he seems to be doing. Bear the infection out of my Circle - our Circle. There's no room for him here; he'd only be a distraction at best and an active hindrance at worst.
Our Circle. Oh, Emma. My Bishop and our pawn have served you well, all unknowing. Bahir al-Razi knows how to undo the block on the White Queen's power? If he and his brother combined theirs, perhaps . . . but do I tell her?
Do I not tell her? What do I want from her, with her, for her?
The windows are still clear, but now my mind- Well. It never lasts, but it always comes back, that precipitated calm. Ride out the surge of emotions; let their clouds hover, threaten, and then unbind themselves, dissipating into clear, cold sky again.
I need to talk to her, regardless. Wide Awake waits, damnable project threatening like the clouds. The Circle's swelled ranks, which need careful trimming in the wake of a phoenix's shattering apocalypse.
And I need to get back to work. Mercheson's proposal is tempting, but I don't trust it, probably for that very reason: she knows I want a deal, and she knows I need it. If only I could get someone on the inside over there, scout her true intentions, then I'd feel more comfortable going into our next meeting. I don't have the information I need, and I don't have the tools I'd normally use to get it, with Linden's preoccupation with the sales off-site tomorrow and whatever tremble that traitor put into his ethics and his loyalty to me. To me! He won't forget what we've done and what we've been to each other. He can't. So, I'll wait for this, too, to pass, and I'll consider what other tools I have-
Ah.
Hm.
I wonder. I do wonder how Zoe McMillan's problem is working itself out. I wonder how grateful to me she's feeling.
Still cloudy outside, and clear again in here. I know what to do. I always do. Just give me enough time, push me enough - I get the job done, as always, as always.
I'm better.