ArchivedLogs:Conspiracy of Sorts

Conspiracy of Sorts
Dramatis Personae Emma, Lucien	2013-12-19 '
Location <NYC> Hellfire Clubhouse - Upper East Side
Monochrome elegance at its finest: the Hellfire Club plays home to New York's elite, and has spared no expense in making that clear. Black and white marble tiles the floor, the pattern distinctly that of a chessboard. Rich wood paneling lines the walls, and the alcoves of the entry hall hold statues reminiscent of chess pieces. Meeting and dining halls provide plentiful space for the club's members to congregate, whatever their needs. The Hellfire's library, while far smaller than its ballroom in size, is far more prized in content. Hundreds of volumes line the meticulously tended shelves, the rarest kept carefully in climate-controlled cases under the watchful eye of the mansion's librarian. High-backed leather chairs and plush couches provide quiet reading spaces beneath soft lighting, and tall windows look out to the mansion's gardens beyond. The main ballroom of the mansion, once vast and opulent, is currently shut down for renovations, a host of contractors in and out during the daytimes. The hallways that branch off from the ballroom staircase are still accessible, though; they run in opposing monochrome: the stark white court's quarters to one side, the dark black court's quarters to the other. The Hellfire Club saw its own share of looters during the crisis, a few even remaining to squat in the opulent guest rooms upstairs. Being home to the richest of the rich, though, means it's easy to get /strings/ pulled, and while there are still many homes in the city waiting for their garbage to be collected on time, for their windows and doors to be fixed, for their grocery stores to have regular deliveries of food, the Hellfire Club had crews in in /short/ order to restore the building to its previous state of finery. Lucien is at the moment just emerging from an upstairs suite. There are back staircases that usually make for a subtler departure but at the moment the ballroom, though exquisitely renovated, has not yet had a grand party to break it /in/ and so is in largely a state of disuse. As such, as he trots down the grand sweep of staircase it is a deserted room he arrives in, the heels of his polished oxfords creating an echo as he crosses the empty dance floor back towards the rest of the club. He's fixing his bow tie, though his suit is otherwise in impeccable order. Emma has been busy ever since her plane touched down at JFK, with rumors and gossip leading the other employees to believe she's been /much/ busier than simply with the planning and execution of the reclaiming of the Hellfire Club, post zombie apocalypse. It's true that when she arrives, she already has most of her contacts already lined up to make repairs to the building, the contractors and subcontractors meeting her at the door when she resumed her office, streamlining the process. The staff, supplemented by new hires whose qualifications were checked by Ms. Frost in record time, found their needs met in both supplies and manpower in record time. The only downside to all of this activity is that Emma hasn't had a free moment to herself to think about anything other than fixing the club up for the return of its members until today. She still doesn't have a glut of freedom when she pushes one of the ballroom doors open and slips inside, but she does intend to make time for a break this once. She pushes the door closed behind her as Lucien starts to cross the ballroom floor, turning to face him after the latch clicks into place inside the strike plate. Her brows raise in surprise at his appearance, but a warm smile spreads across her lips as her attention drifts over his face to the work of his hands. She wears a thick pair of white wool trousers over a pair of white heels she couldn't possibly have worn through the streets of New York. A short sleeved blouse of ivory rests lightly against her skin, the neck wide enough to rest a the very far reaches of her trapezius on her shoulders. Her jacket, discarded in the wake of the slowly warming day outside, rests on one arm, her a single tablet sitting on top of it, her phone left behind for a few moments of silence. "Lucien, dear. I swear it's been an age. How are you?" Lucien's suit, in contrast, is a smoky-dark grey, near to black in the dimmer light of the abandoned ballroom. His brows raise as the door opens and closes again, an easy smile spreading across his face. "Emma, ma cherie. It /feels/ like an age, certainly. Time has been dragging." His steps bring him closer to her; he leans in to peck her lightly, one cheek and then the other. "Perhaps moreso for your absence. New York has seen better days, but I have been --" His green eyes flick up to the ceiling, one corner of his mouth hooking up just a bit higher than the other. "As well as circumstances allow. And you? Did you enjoy your time away?" Emma raises her hands to gently rest her fingers against the backs of Lucien's arms when he leans in for the nearly ghost kisses. They fall away, eyes fluttering open, after the close proximity to smile up at Lucien. "I am well. My time away was just a little too long and too far. I tried to stay busy, but it was difficult to really know what to do. My mind was far too preoccupied with home. I believe I spent as much time as I could consuming every bit of information I could get on my beloved city." She moistens her lips and smiles a little brighter. "I was surprised when I saw your name in a particular news article, attributing the efforts that ended this crisis to you. You should tell me all about it. Have you been thanked properly?" "You should use that word with caution," Lucien murmurs, "these days words are more treacherous than ever." His fingers brush lightly against the backs of Emma's as his hands drop away, a ghostly flutter of comforting familiar warmth whispering in her mind. "Where /did/ you slip off to, I hope it was at least warmer than here." He exhales a quiet breath of laughter, head giving one very small shake. "Me? Goodness, no. How /do/ you thank someone for ending such a time, anyway? But the thanks hardly goes to me. You must have heard," he says this mildly, with a very faint widening of his eyes, "Jackson Holland is New York's saviour. Holland-Zedner, I should say, his husband has made an honest man of him." Emma nods once, with exaggerated slowness in acknowledgement of Lucien's warning, her mood starting to sober despite the influence Lucien applies. "Alas, no. I chose my party poorly. While I could have been enjoying sunny Barcelona at the Chantel/Shaw estate, I ended up with Mr. Buckland in a mountain resort, further north. It was much colder, but he swore if the epidemic spread, cold was the best defense against beings incapable of producing their own internal warmth." She is quiet while Lucien explains his involvement - or the lack there of with the cure, her brows rising once more. "Ah, the ever more ostentatious Mr. Holland... Zedner is now honest? Oh dear. I shall have to take secretive and deceptive out of my profile of him." She lifts her tablet and taps at the screen lightly. "If you're sure you want to give him all the credit, then he shall get the entire fruit basket for himself." << I pick my heroes by my own value system, >> Emma whispers quietly over Lucien's ever shielded mind, senses perked to see how much he's choosing to receive at this time. << Not that I blame you for distancing yourself from a Bugle article highlighting mutant involvement in the incident. That does make things tricky. >> "The cold does seem to slow them. It was not a poor choice. Tell me you at least got some good skiing in, then?" Lucien's mind is glassy as ever, and hardens sharp and crystalline at the whispering. Slowly, the hard mental surface cracks open, just enough to allow his own soft words to drift back out. << /Giving/ him the credit is precisely what I did. Heroes do not simply appear. You need to build them. And he does make such an /eye/-catching design, does he not? >> "Fruit basket," he echoes with soft amusement and a soft click of his tongue at the roof of his mouth. "Just a /little/ on-the-nose, do you not think? I gave him nothing he does not deserve. The man is tireless, and New York would certainly have fared far worse without his efforts." << The media picks its heroes by mine. Thank the gods. If ever a story needed a PR spin it was this fiasco. >> "Fair. I was not considering it from that angle. Generally, fruit baskets are a lovely way of brightening things up and do fit most occasions. It's not like the ci... NYC is going to give him the key -- not that the key opens many doors anymore. It's more symbolic in the end and I tend to prefer tangible fruit to symbolism." Emma inhales deeply as she straightens up and meets Lucien's gaze. << I know when not to challenge idealism. Is there something more appropriate that could appear in his life, say from an anonymous donor? >> "Oh, I did manage to get some skiing in. There were a couple mountains that had some early openings. The snow was hard and artificial, so I didn't partake as much as I would in season." << Oh, if I have my way I think New York just might give him the key, actually. It may not open any tangible gates, but sometimes the symbolism carries its own important weight. >> Lucien's hands fold together behind his back, his eyes meeting Emma's steadily. "On the other hand, I cannot /imagine/ Mr. Holland-Zedner would ever say /no/ to more brightening. Or more sugar. His appetite for both those seems limitless." His gaze ticks away, flicking about the vast empty ballroom. "A shame. If you ever find a minute, we might go some time /this/ season -- though the mountains here cannot hold a candle to real ones. Not to mention how rare your free minutes tend to be. Do you have /plans/ for this --" His hand lifts to flutter fingers towards the room at large. "I think after all New York's been through, one of your delightful affairs could go a long way towards brightening /many/ people's days." << He has of late been flooded with both accolades and death threats. I doubt he would even be much /surprised/ if some pleasant holiday bonus made its way to him. I did warn him that the downside of turning him into a hero would be that -- people will treat him like a hero. But the alternative, >> he sounds a touch regretful at this necessity, << was to let the young man who /created/ the disease be the mutant story people took away from it all. >> Emma pauses, realization dawning and growing as thoughts and words begin to merge into a deeper understanding, subtle indicators in her mannerism clicking into place. << Oh dear, please forgive me. I have spent far too much time around a perfectly dreadful excuse for a human being whose mind is constantly grinding everything into a conspiracy of mutantkind to takeover and destroy all his years of hard work. >> There's softness to her tone now, like the gentle nothing that replaces a headache. << I will stop laying on automatic disapproval and cautious sidestepping and try to pay better attention. This is a project you are pursuing! Why on earth did it take me that long to catch up? >> "My darling Lucien, with an offer like that, I will make time. Getting out in the powder seems delightful, but we should at least give it a weekend if you can spare the time. There's something about lounging by a fire in the evening after that makes the whole affair complete." She pauses and follows his gaze back to the rest of the room. "But not until after the new year. I'm finalizing a few things before proposing a New Years Eve bash that will ring in two thousand fourteen hopefully on the right foot. Namely, I need to make sure I have commitments from nearby vendors before anything, given the slower nature of supplies in Manhattan these days." She glances down at her tablet and the list glowing on the LCD, thoughtfully moistening her lips once more. << I will see what I can do. I feel like I'm in the middle of so many things right now. There will be something, that's for certain. I'm just not sure what yet. >> << I suppose it is a conspiracy, of sorts, >> Lucien allows with a soft flutter of amusement woven into his thoughts. << In that I am conspiring to mitigate the damage from this catastrophe. Not enough, certainly, to stop this disaster of a bill from passing, but -- but. There is at least an opening in /local/ government that shall need filling shortly. A properly groomed mutant hero is far better than a mass murderer for swaying minds. >> Pensive, here. Lucien's smile blossoms warmer. "There's something about lounging by a fire in the evening that makes /winter/ complete. But certainly even moreso after a day in the snow. We /shall/ have to make a weekend of it -- perhaps after the holiday chaos has subsided. I have no doubt that you will ring in the New Year /splendidly/. And equally no doubt that you will be in sore need of relaxation afterwards." "I will," Emma's tone anticipates the exhaustion that will follow, her eyes narrowing as she surveys the room, concentration starting to crease the skin between her brows. "I'll remind you when I'm done that you promised to get away with me." She glances back at him with a warm smile before looking back toward her 'canvas.' << Are you really trying to get him into office? That would be a feat. I'll help if I can, but I don't know if I have any contacts right now that are remotely positive toward mutant causes. Getting them neutral will be difficult as it is. >> << Goodness, no, >> Lucien answers, weight shifting back onto one heel. << That would take a world of convincing for both the public /and/ him, the boy is an anarchist I think he would sooner abolish the office than hold it. I only want to cultivate sympathetic public figures to help prop up the cause as well as prop up -- well. Whoever we find to put into the seat, really, so long as they are malleable the /person/ is irrelevant. >> "I look forward to it. I will find us somewhere lovely. Though, speaking of relaxation, were you coming in here to plan or to find a moment of quiet? And either way," Lucien offers lightly, "would you care to take a cup of tea with me?" "I would love that. We still have so much to catch up on," Emma reaches for Lucien's elbow automatically, tucking her tablet under the opposite arm, turning to look in the same direction as he is facing. "Shall we?"