7/7/07 - Emma
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A rare moment of peace, both for the Professor and for his giggling, goggle-eyed charges, finds him seated before his communications console, head dropped into steepled fingers. The telepathic aether is fraught, today -- << "Maybe he got kinky with Dr. MacTaggart last night!" "In a /tree/!" "/Eeeeeeew/." >> -- and it is physical mediums that he falls back on; the fingers spider across the console, and bring him forthwith to a certain rarified atmosphere housed in a complex not /that/ far away. Man proposes. Technology disposes.
His call hits the switchboards, working its way up the lines with a series of "Hellfire Club, how may I help you?" and "Please hold" until it finally lands on Emma's desk. Emma eyes her phone with sudden and focused attention before pressing the button that will take him off hold. "Charles. This is a rather unexpected delight." Riiiight.
"So I imagine," Charles says tartly, with a sting in the normally gracious voice that carries even through the imperfect medium of speech and telephony. His fingers cramp; he shakes them out, starfishing and closing them into fists in deliberate, cautious repetition. "You will forgive me if I do not exchange the usual courtesies. What, may I ask, have you done to Erik?"
"Done to Erik?" Emma repeats the words with careful enunciation, returning the sting coated in sugar and honey. "What do you mean?"
The aged baritone reply is as sharp as it is concise. "He is not himself. Your doing?"
"I don't know who he is if he's not himself. Perhaps you've just not spent sufficient time with him recently to know who that is," Emma retorts crisply, dismissively. "In either case, Erik is his own master. I am not his keeper, nor his conscience. You are the one who specializes in being that, aren't you?" Though the voice gets softer, it slices like silk wrapped steel.
"But his mind, Emma," cognac replying, as heady and rich as the poison its heritage conceals. Charles sinks back into his chair, the bump of the brace-wrapped one prompting a flicker of annoyance. Emma cannot see it; that privilege must belong solely to the blank screen staring back at him. "That, I think, has more to do with your meddling than mine, of late. I do not hold you responsible for the-- cosmetic alterations," he adds. Distaste slides acrid across the line. "Unless you /suggested/ it to him, perhaps?"
Emma leans away from the desk and rotates her chair in little scoots. "Cosmetic alterations? Please, Charles. I simply suggested some color might make him less forbidding." Her chair reaches the half-way point of the pivot and catches on the desk at its back. "As for his mind, I spend as little time as possible there. Or are you jealous of even that much?"
"Enough to change his personality and smudge his recent memory," Charles says, ignoring the last question -- irrelevant! -- to lower his brow over the comment before. "Not a new start for you. You begin to repeat yourself to an appalling degree, young woman. And the physical alterations to his musculature and his-- were hardly a matter of /some color/."
"Change his-- Muscu--. Charles, darling. I think your vaunted mental powers have finally imploded on themselves. Are you drooling on yourself as well? You should take care of that." Emma stands up and crosses to the door to open it and gesture irritably at the pawn stationed outside. She holds the mouthpiece away from her lips and hisses a series of instructions.
There is a chill in Charles's voice that requires no visual to convey its message. "If you would like to test my vaunted mental powers, my dear Emma, you are more than welcome to attempt it."
"Perhaps I already have, Charles. Poor tactics, darling. I really hadn't thought it in character for you, but I suppose you have surprised me before. If there are any alterations to Erik's psyche, you are as much to blame as I. As for his physique... Well. Maybe he padded to impress you." She turns back into her room and paces into the center, head tilted down and phone pressed hard to her ear.
There is a silence on the phone, a gap of seconds while certain disjointed moments of conversation are replayed with new perspective. Charles says flatly, at last, "He implied something of the sort last night. I believe you have a problem, Emma. Your King has changed his colors and he has taken to wearing his helmet again. Were I in your elegant shoes, I would be concerned."
Paranoia blossoms and flows, spreading out across the mansion to first check for magnetic signatures, then to locate it outside the clubhouse. "Only when he visits you. Who should be concerned, then?" Emma purrs, letting agitation filter out as arrogance.
Charles curls his fingers around his brace. In the reflection of the screen, a battered, irritable, /truly/ arrogant old man looks back at him and sees -- weakness. The telepath's jaw tightens. "I have let him and your Inner Circle be until now, but I will not brook your interference when it threatens me or my people. Be warned, Emma." His hand reaches out to the control panel and signs off. A dramatic exit. Erik is not the only one with a flair for theatrics. In the privacy of his control room, Professor Xavier says a bad word.
And in the privacy of hers, Emma echoes it.
She stares at the phone for a long moment, then snaps it shut and growls as she spins in place and storms for the door. A thundercloud follows after.
[Log ends]
Xavier makes a phone call to Emma and displays his customary charm and diplomacy. He's an ornament to society, he is. No wonder Emma's all over him. Meanwhile, Emma is, naturally, an uncouth savage who barely knows the difference between a bidet and a salad fork. As usual!
A rare moment of peace, both for the Professor and for his giggling, goggle-eyed charges, finds him seated before his communications console, head dropped into steepled fingers. The telepathic aether is fraught, today -- << "Maybe he got kinky with Dr. MacTaggart last night!" "In a /tree/!" "/Eeeeeeew/." >> -- and it is physical mediums that he falls back on; the fingers spider across the console, and bring him forthwith to a certain rarified atmosphere housed in a complex not /that/ far away. Man proposes. Technology disposes.
His call hits the switchboards, working its way up the lines with a series of "Hellfire Club, how may I help you?" and "Please hold" until it finally lands on Emma's desk. Emma eyes her phone with sudden and focused attention before pressing the button that will take him off hold. "Charles. This is a rather unexpected delight." Riiiight.
"So I imagine," Charles says tartly, with a sting in the normally gracious voice that carries even through the imperfect medium of speech and telephony. His fingers cramp; he shakes them out, starfishing and closing them into fists in deliberate, cautious repetition. "You will forgive me if I do not exchange the usual courtesies. What, may I ask, have you done to Erik?"
"Done to Erik?" Emma repeats the words with careful enunciation, returning the sting coated in sugar and honey. "What do you mean?"
The aged baritone reply is as sharp as it is concise. "He is not himself. Your doing?"
"I don't know who he is if he's not himself. Perhaps you've just not spent sufficient time with him recently to know who that is," Emma retorts crisply, dismissively. "In either case, Erik is his own master. I am not his keeper, nor his conscience. You are the one who specializes in being that, aren't you?" Though the voice gets softer, it slices like silk wrapped steel.
"But his mind, Emma," cognac replying, as heady and rich as the poison its heritage conceals. Charles sinks back into his chair, the bump of the brace-wrapped one prompting a flicker of annoyance. Emma cannot see it; that privilege must belong solely to the blank screen staring back at him. "That, I think, has more to do with your meddling than mine, of late. I do not hold you responsible for the-- cosmetic alterations," he adds. Distaste slides acrid across the line. "Unless you /suggested/ it to him, perhaps?"
Emma leans away from the desk and rotates her chair in little scoots. "Cosmetic alterations? Please, Charles. I simply suggested some color might make him less forbidding." Her chair reaches the half-way point of the pivot and catches on the desk at its back. "As for his mind, I spend as little time as possible there. Or are you jealous of even that much?"
"Enough to change his personality and smudge his recent memory," Charles says, ignoring the last question -- irrelevant! -- to lower his brow over the comment before. "Not a new start for you. You begin to repeat yourself to an appalling degree, young woman. And the physical alterations to his musculature and his-- were hardly a matter of /some color/."
"Change his-- Muscu--. Charles, darling. I think your vaunted mental powers have finally imploded on themselves. Are you drooling on yourself as well? You should take care of that." Emma stands up and crosses to the door to open it and gesture irritably at the pawn stationed outside. She holds the mouthpiece away from her lips and hisses a series of instructions.
There is a chill in Charles's voice that requires no visual to convey its message. "If you would like to test my vaunted mental powers, my dear Emma, you are more than welcome to attempt it."
"Perhaps I already have, Charles. Poor tactics, darling. I really hadn't thought it in character for you, but I suppose you have surprised me before. If there are any alterations to Erik's psyche, you are as much to blame as I. As for his physique... Well. Maybe he padded to impress you." She turns back into her room and paces into the center, head tilted down and phone pressed hard to her ear.
There is a silence on the phone, a gap of seconds while certain disjointed moments of conversation are replayed with new perspective. Charles says flatly, at last, "He implied something of the sort last night. I believe you have a problem, Emma. Your King has changed his colors and he has taken to wearing his helmet again. Were I in your elegant shoes, I would be concerned."
Paranoia blossoms and flows, spreading out across the mansion to first check for magnetic signatures, then to locate it outside the clubhouse. "Only when he visits you. Who should be concerned, then?" Emma purrs, letting agitation filter out as arrogance.
Charles curls his fingers around his brace. In the reflection of the screen, a battered, irritable, /truly/ arrogant old man looks back at him and sees -- weakness. The telepath's jaw tightens. "I have let him and your Inner Circle be until now, but I will not brook your interference when it threatens me or my people. Be warned, Emma." His hand reaches out to the control panel and signs off. A dramatic exit. Erik is not the only one with a flair for theatrics. In the privacy of his control room, Professor Xavier says a bad word.
And in the privacy of hers, Emma echoes it.
She stares at the phone for a long moment, then snaps it shut and growls as she spins in place and storms for the door. A thundercloud follows after.
[Log ends]
Xavier makes a phone call to Emma and displays his customary charm and diplomacy. He's an ornament to society, he is. No wonder Emma's all over him. Meanwhile, Emma is, naturally, an uncouth savage who barely knows the difference between a bidet and a salad fork. As usual!