Flashback: cleaning house
[February 14, 2000:]
NB: New Shaw changed this to 2000 from 1999.
Not exactly what I expected on my return from the trip. I was hoping for a long hot shower, a good meal in the privacy of my quarters, an update on whatever I'd missed while I was gone. . . .
She's such a delightful handful of surprises. Darling little girl.
I'd really better keep an eye on her. Just - in case.
2/24/2006
Logfile from Shaw of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick Gallup, Black Rook of the Inner Circle, paces behind his Queen's throne like the old florid bear he is, bound and buttressed in formal ebon garb that sets off his sleek, thinning white hair and face now further reddened with impatience. "She's not coming," he mutters. "She won't be that stupid, not with /him/ out of town. She doesn't move an inch without his lordly permission, you know that."
Paris Seville rubs the worry-line grooved between her fine dark brows, and sighs. "She will," she insists with the dull tone of too many repetitions, too many distractions whirling around the core of her certainty. She sits up against the chair's carved wood and draws her black cape closer around her shoulders, over the expanse of corset-supported pale flesh. "Sebastian /is/ gone, but she's as curious as a cat. She'll come, Frederick. Do stop prowling and come stand by me, please?" Her voice droops over a sad little smile. "Be my support again. One more time." And he stops, and he looks at her, and he obeys, putting a friend's hand on her shoulder while they wait in the heart of Hellfire power, and watch the door for one who might come.
The echoing silence of the room presses in close, surrounding them and seeming to muffle and mock their efforts at filling it. They wait for one who does come, in her own good time, at her leisure, at her whim. The door's creak as it opens with ponderous solemnity shatters the silent anticipation. Emma enters, counterpoint in color and clothing, and crosses to stand at the head of the table opposite the thrones.
Gallup is spared the briefest flicker of a glance, his power denied and dismissed. The Black Queen is granted the entirety of her frosted geniality. "Paris. How sweet your invitation was. I was delighted to receive it," she purrs.
<< Uppity chit, >> the man's mind grumbles, and his hand tightens on Paris's shoulder. She simply sits, hands in her lap, and looks at the younger woman with a tranquil expression covering bitterness, resentment, and resignation. "Thank you, Emma, and thank you for coming. Would you like to sit down?" Her smile, practiced and polished, revives like a bright banner welcoming knights home from a campaign. "We have a lot to talk about. It's about time we got to that, hm? Three months you've been with us now." << And Queen in fact, voted, not just installed like his pretty tool. Why did he do it, why did we let him, why, why, why . . . >>
Lashes dip to hide the gleam of satisfied triumph from her eyes, but there is no such cover for the smile curling her lips. "I'm fine with standing, but thank you," she replies sweetly, clasping her hands in front of her, the edges of the cloak falling forward to kiss and hide arrogant defiance. "What subjects of discourse would pleasure you, Madam?"
Gallup grinds his teeth and sticks his hands behind his stiff back; his head tilts up with ursine displeasure, and his thoughts seethe with restrained indignation at this treatment, this arrogance, /just/ like the boy Shaw, /just/ as bad, worse coming from Winston Frost's daughter, wasn't there some rumor about her, before Shaw got hold of her--
Paris inclines her head in acceptance of the girl's choice. "The subject that's lain between us since the beginning," she says gently. "Your service in our group." << Ranked like one of us, /not/ one of us, oh, damn you, Sebastian! >> "Are you really happy here? Do you truly believe that this is the place for you? You are young, rich, blessed with talent and the future. You don't have to be tied to a musty old room filled with musty old people," and she crinkles her nose in a joke to include herself in that number.
Emma tips her head in bright-eyed and genuine consideration of the question, and her answer is long in coming, but when it does, there is a tone of finality that refuses disbelief. "Happiness is not a consideration of mine, Black Queen. I lust after one thing, and that one thing is found here. This musty old room may be /your/ tomb, but it is merely a means to an end for me. I will transcend the confines that you have bound yourself in."
"So he likes them spouting off like third-rate Shakespearean actors," Gallup sneers for his Queen's ears. She lifts a hand, forestalling him (though her mind sparkles with catty agreement), and says more firmly, "Hardly my tomb, dear. This has been my home for longer than you've been alive. You don't know what you've gotten into, you and your 'lust.'" She pronounces the word with upper-class disdain and haunted memories' stain. "We are willing to let you go. Walk out of the clubhouse and never return, and God go with you and smile upon you."
Emma lowers gaze to the edge of the table in front of her, her smile not slipping for an instant. "I told you that you underestimated me, Paris," she murmurs, her voice pitched to volumes impossible to hear, yet they both do. Her words pulse with edged determination and soothing cool, pity mixed into the balm to irritate. Her head lifts, and there is nothing young or God-fearing in the expression on her face. << I also told you that few have the chance to do so again. >>
The blood drains from both older pieces' faces. << Did I-- >> << Was that--? >> gibbers from their minds, mingled and merged in unwitting unity: of astonishment, of disbelief, of horror. Gallup steps up to the table as Paris shrinks back in her chair. "You," he starts to grate, grinding for words that seethe and babble in his thoughts before finding adequate vocal expression. "You /freak/. Is that how you ensnared him? Puppeting our King, you wicked, impure minx?"
Emma laughs, pure delight at the totality of their responses. "Your king? As if anyone could puppet /him/. Surely you aren't underestimating /him/?" Her hands fly up to clasp straight-fingered under her chin. The cloak folds out and falls off her elbows like shadowing wings. "Oh, but of course you are," she says, separating her hand to draw under the edges of the cloak and tucking them back over her shoulders, baring herself proudly. She steps back and sideways, capturing the outspoken Rook's mind easily, bearing down hard into it to freeze his movements as she approaches. "You would lecture /me/ on impurity, old man?"
Gallup is solid as stone containing incredulous (terrified) outrage. Her words summon, all unbidden, the stain of memories of his own: faces, names . . . incidents. He can't even form coherent thought, only the fluttering panic of LETMEGO like butterflies with rusty iron wings banging again and again against the coercive imprisonment.
"Emma," whispers Paris, horrified and protective (flaring with it!) Black Queen. "Whatever you're doing . . . don't. Don't do this." Her hands tighten compulsively in her lap, and she's trembling to put a ripple through her own cape: black velvet trapped in shock's assault.
Emma closes the distance between them, coming up to a fast inches from the Rook's frozen form and reaching eager fingers up under his lapels to tug him to face her, putting his back to his queen, who's sqwacks are ignored. "Go on, Rook. Lecture me. Do it. Do what you want to do, what you /really/ want to do," she murmurs, seduction dancing in the breath warm against his jaw and the mental fingers tripping through his thoughts.
As the man fights her control -- and his (oh, how base desires sicken and weaken him, move him forward/move him away even if only in his mind, no, nonono!) -- Paris totters to her feet. Her hands are out of her lap, and a gun is in them, trained on her best guess at the location of Emma's heart. A rictus of anguished hatred mars her handsome face, but her aim does not waver. Unlike her voice: "No. Leave him /alone/, I said. I'm ordering you, and if--if you do not obey me, you will--" << Die. Die. Diediedie. >>
Emma separates a thread of power and flings it toward the Black Queen, weakening her control of Gallup and loosening his muscles as Paris' arms stiffen and swing straight-armed upwards to point the gun at Gallup's head. Emma's eyes stay fastened on his, watching eagerly, invitingly.
Paris whimpers, obeys, can't /not/ obey the tug on her arms. Frederick jerks, just enough to swing his head and shoulders around (floppily, sloppily), to stare at his Queen. And the gun. The /gun/. His desires are gone, fled like water through the cracks of absolute certainty of death. His throat works, produces, "Not . . . this way . . ."
Emma shrugs, suddenly bored with the game. "Why not?" and a spiked dive at other Queen's motor center sets her fingers twitching one at a time in a capricious version of Russian roulette. Emma turns and moves away, smiling cruel satisfaction as behind her, the gun fires.
"/Frederick/!" Paris cries out the second after, and the second before the body, head-shot, spills untidily to the floor, bumping against the table with a solid, meaty thunk along the way. Tears ravage her cheeks and bubble against her frothing words next. "You bitch! You traitorous, inhuman, horrid little /bitch/! He was my friend, and you--you made me, oh, God, you /made/ me do that to him!"
Emma steeples the fingers of one hand on the table top and turns to give Paris her renewed attention. "/I/ did? A pretty tool like me? Madam," she mews in patent insincerity as she slowly twists her body to follow the turns of shoulders.
Paris sobs quietly, head averted from the betrayed, betraying arms still stiffly holding the gun. << You did, you did, you did, >> her mind keens with grief that cuts with acidic surety through her shock. "You can't do this," she says hoarsely aloud. "You can't get away with it. /He won't let you./ You poisonous viper, nursing at his breast -- he'll kill you for it. One of these days. I swear to you, Emma Frost, he'll be your death, if you don't strike first." Her mood muddles: either scenario works for her, through the mourning, the sorrow, the fear and disgust.
Emma affects an expression of sorrow, of pity and retraces her steps, avoiding the fallen Rook and the bloody, lumpy mess spreading out in an inexorably widening circle. "Shh, Paris. Such a display," she croons, mildly disapproving as she lifts her hand to the woman's wrist and her powers let her arms go slack. A booted foot lifts to the Black Queen's throne and pushes the heavy wood aside, giving enough inches to let Emma press close and whisper, "then I will have to make sure that I /do/ strike first."
Paris flinches at the closeness of sweet young asp. "Do it, then," she throws back, dark eyes aflame with reckless and uncaring passion. "Kill him. Take him out, the black-hearted bastard. But . . . oh, Frederick. My poor Frederick. Did you have to? Did you really? And /like that/." She trembles on the precipice of fresh tears.
"I'm sorry," Emma murmurs, falsely sympathetic, dipping her head to press a kiss to the older woman's velvet-covered shoulder. "So very sorry, Paris." A pause, a touch to smooth a wisp of hair back, and then, "Do you want me to make it better, Madam?"
Nearly paralyzed with revulsion, Paris only stares at her, trembling still. She licks her lips. Her mind froths with wild emotion, fragments of memory and plans and hopes all crashing and smashing into each other now. Another lick of lips. She swallows. And--
The door slams inward and open under a hasty shoulder's push, and Shaw pants from the run that must have clattered him all the way from the clubhouse entrance to the meeting room. He still has his suit on, tie flapping askew, and /his/ mind seethes with worry and anger, decorated 'round with the impression of airport and car and running-racing-rescuing. At the sight of the women's tableau, he stops. Just stops. And he swallows, too. "Emma. Would you -- like to explain this to me, please?" He doesn't even look at Paris after that quick initial intake.
"I'm sending you a Valentine, darling," Emma chirps, straightening and smiling across at him brightly.
Paris has only eyes for him, in return. "She killed Frederick." Her voice, her lovely tool, cracks and splinters, like the violence in her gaze. "She /made/ me kill Frederick. A gun -- I had a gun, and--"
"And you were going to kill her," Shaw supposes, grasping the situation in that second and purling satisfaction in his smile, his words, the warm emotion he sends to the White Queen. "Well, well, well. Someone's been busy in my absence, all right. Paris. You have always underestimated me, and now you did the same with my special girl. Oh, well. Emma, thank you. It's a /lovely/ present. I didn't get you anything nearly so fine. I apologize."
Emma inclines her head, satisfaction etched into every nuance of expression and posture that acknowledges his approval and turns on his former Queen. She weaves another layer of control around Paris' mind and grasps it tightly, painfully, holding her still as she leans close and repeats her taunting gesture, though transferring it from her shoulder to her cheek. << I'll remember your advice, Queen, >> she laughs and steps back, and back, and back. There's no game played this time. Just a squeeze.
Shaw slits his eyes, and his smile, with the sound of the gunshot, and he watches the body fall behind the table's barrier with nary a ripple in his expression or emotions. Satisfaction to match hers, and exultation. "Good girl," he croons to Emma, holding out his hand. "Come here and let me show you what I brought you back from Chicago. You do like diamonds, don't you?"
Emma gathers the edges of her cloak and lifts the hem up, sidestepping the mess Shaw's Rook has made of the floor with a fastidiousness-offended sneer. "Diamonds? Love them," she answers, chin lifted proudly as she slides her hand into his and continues the movement into him. Puppet and Master.
[Log ends.]
NB: New Shaw changed this to 2000 from 1999.
Not exactly what I expected on my return from the trip. I was hoping for a long hot shower, a good meal in the privacy of my quarters, an update on whatever I'd missed while I was gone. . . .
She's such a delightful handful of surprises. Darling little girl.
I'd really better keep an eye on her. Just - in case.
2/24/2006
Logfile from Shaw of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick Gallup, Black Rook of the Inner Circle, paces behind his Queen's throne like the old florid bear he is, bound and buttressed in formal ebon garb that sets off his sleek, thinning white hair and face now further reddened with impatience. "She's not coming," he mutters. "She won't be that stupid, not with /him/ out of town. She doesn't move an inch without his lordly permission, you know that."
Paris Seville rubs the worry-line grooved between her fine dark brows, and sighs. "She will," she insists with the dull tone of too many repetitions, too many distractions whirling around the core of her certainty. She sits up against the chair's carved wood and draws her black cape closer around her shoulders, over the expanse of corset-supported pale flesh. "Sebastian /is/ gone, but she's as curious as a cat. She'll come, Frederick. Do stop prowling and come stand by me, please?" Her voice droops over a sad little smile. "Be my support again. One more time." And he stops, and he looks at her, and he obeys, putting a friend's hand on her shoulder while they wait in the heart of Hellfire power, and watch the door for one who might come.
The echoing silence of the room presses in close, surrounding them and seeming to muffle and mock their efforts at filling it. They wait for one who does come, in her own good time, at her leisure, at her whim. The door's creak as it opens with ponderous solemnity shatters the silent anticipation. Emma enters, counterpoint in color and clothing, and crosses to stand at the head of the table opposite the thrones.
Gallup is spared the briefest flicker of a glance, his power denied and dismissed. The Black Queen is granted the entirety of her frosted geniality. "Paris. How sweet your invitation was. I was delighted to receive it," she purrs.
<< Uppity chit, >> the man's mind grumbles, and his hand tightens on Paris's shoulder. She simply sits, hands in her lap, and looks at the younger woman with a tranquil expression covering bitterness, resentment, and resignation. "Thank you, Emma, and thank you for coming. Would you like to sit down?" Her smile, practiced and polished, revives like a bright banner welcoming knights home from a campaign. "We have a lot to talk about. It's about time we got to that, hm? Three months you've been with us now." << And Queen in fact, voted, not just installed like his pretty tool. Why did he do it, why did we let him, why, why, why . . . >>
Lashes dip to hide the gleam of satisfied triumph from her eyes, but there is no such cover for the smile curling her lips. "I'm fine with standing, but thank you," she replies sweetly, clasping her hands in front of her, the edges of the cloak falling forward to kiss and hide arrogant defiance. "What subjects of discourse would pleasure you, Madam?"
Gallup grinds his teeth and sticks his hands behind his stiff back; his head tilts up with ursine displeasure, and his thoughts seethe with restrained indignation at this treatment, this arrogance, /just/ like the boy Shaw, /just/ as bad, worse coming from Winston Frost's daughter, wasn't there some rumor about her, before Shaw got hold of her--
Paris inclines her head in acceptance of the girl's choice. "The subject that's lain between us since the beginning," she says gently. "Your service in our group." << Ranked like one of us, /not/ one of us, oh, damn you, Sebastian! >> "Are you really happy here? Do you truly believe that this is the place for you? You are young, rich, blessed with talent and the future. You don't have to be tied to a musty old room filled with musty old people," and she crinkles her nose in a joke to include herself in that number.
Emma tips her head in bright-eyed and genuine consideration of the question, and her answer is long in coming, but when it does, there is a tone of finality that refuses disbelief. "Happiness is not a consideration of mine, Black Queen. I lust after one thing, and that one thing is found here. This musty old room may be /your/ tomb, but it is merely a means to an end for me. I will transcend the confines that you have bound yourself in."
"So he likes them spouting off like third-rate Shakespearean actors," Gallup sneers for his Queen's ears. She lifts a hand, forestalling him (though her mind sparkles with catty agreement), and says more firmly, "Hardly my tomb, dear. This has been my home for longer than you've been alive. You don't know what you've gotten into, you and your 'lust.'" She pronounces the word with upper-class disdain and haunted memories' stain. "We are willing to let you go. Walk out of the clubhouse and never return, and God go with you and smile upon you."
Emma lowers gaze to the edge of the table in front of her, her smile not slipping for an instant. "I told you that you underestimated me, Paris," she murmurs, her voice pitched to volumes impossible to hear, yet they both do. Her words pulse with edged determination and soothing cool, pity mixed into the balm to irritate. Her head lifts, and there is nothing young or God-fearing in the expression on her face. << I also told you that few have the chance to do so again. >>
The blood drains from both older pieces' faces. << Did I-- >> << Was that--? >> gibbers from their minds, mingled and merged in unwitting unity: of astonishment, of disbelief, of horror. Gallup steps up to the table as Paris shrinks back in her chair. "You," he starts to grate, grinding for words that seethe and babble in his thoughts before finding adequate vocal expression. "You /freak/. Is that how you ensnared him? Puppeting our King, you wicked, impure minx?"
Emma laughs, pure delight at the totality of their responses. "Your king? As if anyone could puppet /him/. Surely you aren't underestimating /him/?" Her hands fly up to clasp straight-fingered under her chin. The cloak folds out and falls off her elbows like shadowing wings. "Oh, but of course you are," she says, separating her hand to draw under the edges of the cloak and tucking them back over her shoulders, baring herself proudly. She steps back and sideways, capturing the outspoken Rook's mind easily, bearing down hard into it to freeze his movements as she approaches. "You would lecture /me/ on impurity, old man?"
Gallup is solid as stone containing incredulous (terrified) outrage. Her words summon, all unbidden, the stain of memories of his own: faces, names . . . incidents. He can't even form coherent thought, only the fluttering panic of LETMEGO like butterflies with rusty iron wings banging again and again against the coercive imprisonment.
"Emma," whispers Paris, horrified and protective (flaring with it!) Black Queen. "Whatever you're doing . . . don't. Don't do this." Her hands tighten compulsively in her lap, and she's trembling to put a ripple through her own cape: black velvet trapped in shock's assault.
Emma closes the distance between them, coming up to a fast inches from the Rook's frozen form and reaching eager fingers up under his lapels to tug him to face her, putting his back to his queen, who's sqwacks are ignored. "Go on, Rook. Lecture me. Do it. Do what you want to do, what you /really/ want to do," she murmurs, seduction dancing in the breath warm against his jaw and the mental fingers tripping through his thoughts.
As the man fights her control -- and his (oh, how base desires sicken and weaken him, move him forward/move him away even if only in his mind, no, nonono!) -- Paris totters to her feet. Her hands are out of her lap, and a gun is in them, trained on her best guess at the location of Emma's heart. A rictus of anguished hatred mars her handsome face, but her aim does not waver. Unlike her voice: "No. Leave him /alone/, I said. I'm ordering you, and if--if you do not obey me, you will--" << Die. Die. Diediedie. >>
Emma separates a thread of power and flings it toward the Black Queen, weakening her control of Gallup and loosening his muscles as Paris' arms stiffen and swing straight-armed upwards to point the gun at Gallup's head. Emma's eyes stay fastened on his, watching eagerly, invitingly.
Paris whimpers, obeys, can't /not/ obey the tug on her arms. Frederick jerks, just enough to swing his head and shoulders around (floppily, sloppily), to stare at his Queen. And the gun. The /gun/. His desires are gone, fled like water through the cracks of absolute certainty of death. His throat works, produces, "Not . . . this way . . ."
Emma shrugs, suddenly bored with the game. "Why not?" and a spiked dive at other Queen's motor center sets her fingers twitching one at a time in a capricious version of Russian roulette. Emma turns and moves away, smiling cruel satisfaction as behind her, the gun fires.
"/Frederick/!" Paris cries out the second after, and the second before the body, head-shot, spills untidily to the floor, bumping against the table with a solid, meaty thunk along the way. Tears ravage her cheeks and bubble against her frothing words next. "You bitch! You traitorous, inhuman, horrid little /bitch/! He was my friend, and you--you made me, oh, God, you /made/ me do that to him!"
Emma steeples the fingers of one hand on the table top and turns to give Paris her renewed attention. "/I/ did? A pretty tool like me? Madam," she mews in patent insincerity as she slowly twists her body to follow the turns of shoulders.
Paris sobs quietly, head averted from the betrayed, betraying arms still stiffly holding the gun. << You did, you did, you did, >> her mind keens with grief that cuts with acidic surety through her shock. "You can't do this," she says hoarsely aloud. "You can't get away with it. /He won't let you./ You poisonous viper, nursing at his breast -- he'll kill you for it. One of these days. I swear to you, Emma Frost, he'll be your death, if you don't strike first." Her mood muddles: either scenario works for her, through the mourning, the sorrow, the fear and disgust.
Emma affects an expression of sorrow, of pity and retraces her steps, avoiding the fallen Rook and the bloody, lumpy mess spreading out in an inexorably widening circle. "Shh, Paris. Such a display," she croons, mildly disapproving as she lifts her hand to the woman's wrist and her powers let her arms go slack. A booted foot lifts to the Black Queen's throne and pushes the heavy wood aside, giving enough inches to let Emma press close and whisper, "then I will have to make sure that I /do/ strike first."
Paris flinches at the closeness of sweet young asp. "Do it, then," she throws back, dark eyes aflame with reckless and uncaring passion. "Kill him. Take him out, the black-hearted bastard. But . . . oh, Frederick. My poor Frederick. Did you have to? Did you really? And /like that/." She trembles on the precipice of fresh tears.
"I'm sorry," Emma murmurs, falsely sympathetic, dipping her head to press a kiss to the older woman's velvet-covered shoulder. "So very sorry, Paris." A pause, a touch to smooth a wisp of hair back, and then, "Do you want me to make it better, Madam?"
Nearly paralyzed with revulsion, Paris only stares at her, trembling still. She licks her lips. Her mind froths with wild emotion, fragments of memory and plans and hopes all crashing and smashing into each other now. Another lick of lips. She swallows. And--
The door slams inward and open under a hasty shoulder's push, and Shaw pants from the run that must have clattered him all the way from the clubhouse entrance to the meeting room. He still has his suit on, tie flapping askew, and /his/ mind seethes with worry and anger, decorated 'round with the impression of airport and car and running-racing-rescuing. At the sight of the women's tableau, he stops. Just stops. And he swallows, too. "Emma. Would you -- like to explain this to me, please?" He doesn't even look at Paris after that quick initial intake.
"I'm sending you a Valentine, darling," Emma chirps, straightening and smiling across at him brightly.
Paris has only eyes for him, in return. "She killed Frederick." Her voice, her lovely tool, cracks and splinters, like the violence in her gaze. "She /made/ me kill Frederick. A gun -- I had a gun, and--"
"And you were going to kill her," Shaw supposes, grasping the situation in that second and purling satisfaction in his smile, his words, the warm emotion he sends to the White Queen. "Well, well, well. Someone's been busy in my absence, all right. Paris. You have always underestimated me, and now you did the same with my special girl. Oh, well. Emma, thank you. It's a /lovely/ present. I didn't get you anything nearly so fine. I apologize."
Emma inclines her head, satisfaction etched into every nuance of expression and posture that acknowledges his approval and turns on his former Queen. She weaves another layer of control around Paris' mind and grasps it tightly, painfully, holding her still as she leans close and repeats her taunting gesture, though transferring it from her shoulder to her cheek. << I'll remember your advice, Queen, >> she laughs and steps back, and back, and back. There's no game played this time. Just a squeeze.
Shaw slits his eyes, and his smile, with the sound of the gunshot, and he watches the body fall behind the table's barrier with nary a ripple in his expression or emotions. Satisfaction to match hers, and exultation. "Good girl," he croons to Emma, holding out his hand. "Come here and let me show you what I brought you back from Chicago. You do like diamonds, don't you?"
Emma gathers the edges of her cloak and lifts the hem up, sidestepping the mess Shaw's Rook has made of the floor with a fastidiousness-offended sneer. "Diamonds? Love them," she answers, chin lifted proudly as she slides her hand into his and continues the movement into him. Puppet and Master.
[Log ends.]