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agameoftangledwebs-blog · 7 years ago

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#10 A First Gift

In the span of how the Kaldorei judge time Elru wasn't likely to find her reintroduction to Highborne Society to be a slow one. As soon as she was awake next she'd be confronted with books and attending Saeros on what he'd blithely describe as his 'rounds'. Magic was a rather valuable resource and when possible things were done by hand rather than magic alone which put the pair from one side of Eldre'Thalas to the other over hours of constant walking. The empty city was a warren of halls and corridors and hidden places that would be far too easy to get lost in--proven as they came across the errant corpse of an Ogre or Satyrs who had moved in to the more open areas and thusly gotten lost--but Saeros seemed to know them all. For the most part it seemed to be a gathering of information, thick letters being exchanged between Saeros and the various singles and couples that they visited, but other times it was subtle intimidation. He'd mentioned once before how his current purpose was to be a tool and by the shocked faces and the odd comments of welcoming him back to Eldre'Thalas from abroad punctuated how formal all of this conversation seemed to be. Its clear among the eldest Highborne there were no 'friends'. This pattern went on for several days until Saeros finally relents and brings Elru to a small library she'd never been to before but passed through several times on their walks. The most noticeable nature of the room was the scent of new paper and freshly dried ink that followed after them like clawing fingers, beckoning them to stay when they'd only gone on before. He takes a sudden stop in the middle of the room, surveying the spines of its contents lining the walls with a casual scan before looking to Elru. "This is some of Eldre'Thalas's newest acquisitions from across-" He pauses for a moment to recall the foreign word before translating it twice into Darnassian for her benefit, "-Azeroth. That first shelf contains all you will need to begin studying the Common language. Questions?"

"No questions. I will absorb all these immediately." Her response is prompt, but not for lack of small amount of awe and wonder as she idly brushes her fingertips across pages and edges of fresh printed paper and ink. It would be obvious to Saeros, but to the casual observer she'd be impassive as she always has been on each of Saeros' rounds that he took her on. Her robe is a practical one, with a touch of aesthetic that seemed to be a requirement of Highborne fashion. She has two new additions to herself whenever she heads out. A large journal book she clutches to herself and every so often opens to scribble notes in, and a sort of... thick ridged short cape of thick paper from her room that hangs from her neck by strings of twine. "Azeroth." She practices the word itself as well. "I will remain within the vicinity until you return, barring unwelcome circumstance."

"See that you do." He leaves without further detail or explanation.

And so Elru would collect a few books, find herself a corner in the library with her back to the corner, sit there, and begin reading. Looking carefully behind and around her as she settles she allows herself a moment to relax, though not entirely. A hum of magic persists around her, as it often does now whenever Elru leaves her suite.

For the most part this was a quiet library, even among the Highborne, though strange considering how valuable fresh information must be. Elru's allowed a few hours of peace before the murmuring of low voices echoes down the hall. Its clear the voices are young and male before the come around the corner into the library. They seemed to be around Elru's own age, though looks are often deceiving among Kaldorei, and modestly dressed even among Highborne. The next interesting fact was that they looked to be identical twins. If one had to guess they were likely pages of some sort, going about doing the bidding of whoever was over them. The one closest to Elru notices her first and elbows his brother before coming closer. "Who are you?" The lagging twin demands, already growing irritated in both tone and posture.

Elru lifts her eyes from her pages and just stares at the two blankly for a moment before she responds aloud, matching the volume though not the tone of the male. "Pardon me, but who is asking?" She glances behind the twins before refocusing back at the two. Her large journal book is being used as a lap-rest for her current book on Common.

"The apprentices of Lord Wintercrest--whose library you're sitting in." His voice had turned sharper while the other pipes in after with an almost beseeching lilt, "You'd best leave. Thieving books can get you sent to the pylons." The pair comes to a stop maybe five yards from her. A proper distance between casters.

She stares at them blankly again, then slowly, deliberately, lowers her eyes back to her book. "I am not thieving. I am sitting here reading. I am here to do so by the bidding of Saeros Kir-Moldir, whose authority I recognize over that of your Lord Wintercrest. If you or your Lord truly take issue with my presence then take it up with Kir-Moldir."

She'd feel and hear him get close before he actually does, further given away by the brother's anxious, "Jalus-" Before Elru would likely have to do -something- to keep hold of her book. Otherwise, it's being taken right out of her hands. "I think you need a lesson in recognizing your betters. It wasn't a request. Get lost."

The book would indeed leave her grip but for only a moment, but mid-withdrawal from her grip her hands shoot out and take firm grip of the tome, eyes wide and staring hard at the man as if he had committed a mortal offense in taking her reading from her. The bags from her time of isolation have not completely gone away. The hum of magic around her becomes more erratic and sharp, like a disturbed nest of bees. Quietly and slowly she speaks, "If you want me to leave, get your Lord. Now let go of my reading."

While the Highborne were the epitome of Arcane breeding they're still not so far from other more.. uncultured Kaldorei. They can sense blood in the water perhaps far faster than any animal. They needed to to be able to survive among their peers. The young man on the other end of her book gives her a smile that in a few centuries would have a cutting edge of cruelty attached to it. "While you run? I don't think so. Nasris and I should educate you while you're here like good hosts. Won't we?" Despite the fact that the more reserved of the twins, Nasris, had hung back thus far there was no sympathy in his face. More wariness, eagerness even.

Unblinking she stares right back as she slowly stands up from her corner seating, hands still on her side of the book as she lets her journal book fall to the floor to lay open to blank pages, pages that don't quite sit still. Any blank sheaves of paper or unenchanted book pages in the immediate vicinity will also rustle and refuse to sit still. Such a smile and threat from the elf may have unnerved her once, but she's been on the receiving end of looks much more menacing and cruel, followed by threats that actually were carried out. Maintaining that unblinking stare an odd sound not unlike shears begins subtly ringing in the ears of the men, men she eyes with a distant intensity as if they were merely something to be studied.

They were still Magi at their cores and as the book drops both men draw back for space, leaving her with her book but with their arms out and at the ready for casting. "Don't even think about it." Nasris warns while Jalus picks up the thought, as twins do. "There's two of us and one of you."

She cocks her head slightly to the side as she eyes them, as if suddenly them speaking, drawing back for room and casting their arms out were some of the most peculiar things she's seen. Still holding the book, though now by its closed spine as it hangs at her side. "Two of you? Don't speak such nonsense out of those shoddily folded creases you call lips. One, two or twelve, it's all the same thing to me." She takes one slow stride forward, if only to set the book down on the nearest end table, stepping over her restless large journal book on the way. Her hands are at her sides, but that magical hum around her is almost distracting as she takes a second stride forward closer to the two.

And just like that Jalus flings out a hand for a blast of Arcane while his twin channels another Arcane spell, one of the classic projectiles. Both are obviously aimed for her.

Elru simply... takes the attacks with gasps and grunts, jerking almost rag-doll like at the two impacts, nearly losing her balance. The arcane blast catches her in the chest and jaw jerking her upper body back while the following projectile lands heavily in her gut immediately doubling her back over. Robes ruined in those places, and now bleeding from the gut, neck and chin, she stares at the two with open naked perplexion. Not pain, shock, fear or anger, just simple mildly perplexed surprise as she stands there.

The brothers grin in unison before casting as one. The tones of the spell might ring a few bells for Elru, this one had to do with time, particularly the stopping of it. For her.

The moment of curious surprise is over for her as her open confusion becomes an expression that's nothing but empty and cold as she audibly mutters and mimics word for word the channeling spell the brothers are performing, indicating her own strong grasp on the magic of time. No spell is forthcoming, though. A third stride forward and the next thing the brothers notice is multiple snap and creak noises as multi-jointed multi-fingered paper limbs immediately go for their necks, clamping around them like pincers should they unwisely choose not to move.

Their spell is cut short as they both jerk backwards, gaining more distance from Elru's artificial limbs and yet the more brash brother is caught up but the pincers, having thrown up his arm into it. Within the next moment he attempts to light it. Its only paper after all.

That limb squeezes with far more strength than paper should be allowed, bruising to the bone, but it does light on fire, forcing its withdrawal. As parts of it crumble off with its burning components it merely unfolds and refolds into its former shape like regenerative origami, her other two arms stretching and elongating by the joints as they fill her side of the room, fingers snipping together with audible shearing sounds. And yet she pays attention to nothing her arms are doing. Hands planting on her bleeding face and the wound over her gut she grips, squeezes, and with the sharp sound of tearing paper and peeling tape tears apart and discards a layer of herself onto the floor, revealing an unharmed and predatory Elru underneath as she stalks forward two more strides, artificial arms reaching. "Oxygen, one hundred seventy two kilograms. Carbon, sixty four kilograms. Hydrogen, twenty eight kilograms. Nitrogen, seven point two kilograms. Calcium, four kilograms. Phosphorus, three point one two kilograms. Potassium, point five six kilograms. Sulfur..." The physical elemental composition of the male elven body by component. Times two.

Jalus straightens, cradling his wounded arm with his better and looking to Nasris. Although he was the more brash of the twins he clearly relied upon his brother's more level stability. He instructs him immediately. "Go get Wintercrest." And so it was that Nasris stays while his brother blinks away back the way they'd come almost instantly. Now that they're alone Nasris was only concerned with keeping a safe distance.

Safe distance that Elru wasn't going to allow him. She didn't run, but she didn't take it easy, continuing her strides forward that get incrementally quicker, artificial arms pushing and clamping and grasping at the environment as if to help her along. Elru herself keeps her eye contact on the one remaining brother, real arms at her sides still as she continues to mutter off elemental components till she finishes. "That is all you are made of, little ANT." Her arms will jerk forward, not aiming at him, but attempting to block his escape, crossing his paths, snicking at his boots. "Gas and DIRT."

"Shut up!" It was a risk he took in such a priceless room but when life and limb are on the line there's little reason to back it. A wave of uncontrolled fire washes up before him with a gesture, entirely lacking the finesse of his Arcane mastery, as he aims to consume whatever gets too close to him.

Elru doesn't rush headlong into the wave of fire but neither does she slow down. One of her artificial arms, singeing at the edges, takes grasp of a sturdy end table or small shelf and throws it bodily in front of her at the source of the flame, following the minor respite the gap brings as she continues to stalk forward, artificial arms crumbling away.

Her table would soon find itself shattered by a more precise strike of Arcane. "What do you hope to accomplish here aside from embarrassment?" He spits out with all the loathing someone of higher breeding could fit into their words.

Her reply was an almost innocent one as she raises one of her real hands to about waist level as she brings a countering chill to the heat around her, still stepping closer to the man. "I have nothing to be embarrassed about. All I wanted to do was read. Then in came a pair of paper pests who felt the need to peacock."

Now that they were closer to the middle of the room the twin creates and sends off in the same word-gesture a ball of twisting, writhing Arcane straight for her. "You'll be sacrificed alone on how much magic you've -wasted- here today!"

Elru Blinks forward bringing her almost behind and to the side of the twin, staring sideways at him as she clasps her hands behind her, her arms reforming and folding back into existence out of her back folded up like a giant curled up insect. "This from -you-," as she pointedly eyes the lingering bits of singe here and there in the room. She'd manage to get that in before that ball of arcane impacted on something that wasn't on her.

Just before the ball hits Nasris makes a desperate gesture, redirecting the spell and dragging it into the floor and not into the bookcase it'd been so close to destroying. He whirls on her with a snarl, teeth bared, when another voice breaks in. "That is -quite- enough." Elru could keenly feel any active arcane she held being dragged down into various cardinal points in the room, preventing any more spell-casting, or paper-arm bending from continuing on. Jalus stood in the doorway just off to one side of a truly -old- Highborne. Not only was his hair white from age but face lined heavily and sagging from the years pressed upon him, blurring his eyes with a thin layer of white haze. Despite the obvious physical imperfections those silver eyes were set on Elru as he challenges her, "Who are you and why are you here?"

She turns her head to better eye the Highborne with half-lidden baggy eyes on such a youthful face, her feet and body following as she turns to face him full bodily, hands still clasped behind her back where her artificial arms remain folded up. "Elru Relgim, future Elru Kir-Moldir. I was assigned by Saeros Kir-Moldir to read up on newly printed texts on language when these... two," she glances at the twins each before looking back at the aging Highborne, "saw fit to assault me."

The pause between when she finishes speaking and when the old man gives some sort of acknowledgement that he'd heard her could easily lead one to believe he was hard of hearing or a little slow in the head. "Hmn." He grunts. "Kir'Moldir's you say. He would leave you in the middle of my treasury with no thought to the outcome. Come here, girl." He holds out a weathered hand. "Let me get a proper look at you."

The narrowing of her eyes made clear her distrust of his intent but she obeyed, albeit reluctantly, as she made slow strides towards him till she was within his reach, tense all the while. She didn't shy though. If anything, she lifted her chin to make her features more clear to him.

He doesn't peer at her but waves his loose, bony hand over her outline. He was frail physically but its clearly not the case when it comes to magic. There was a depth to the power that brushed against her own that seemed even more vast than anything she'd come to know before. There was great potential for harm from this man and yet all he did was rifle through her 'pages' of her own personal power on a respectably topical level. Even so, it makes the tear in her twitch in brief response. "More final than any ceremony before Elune." He comments with a dry humor as the hand falls. His near-sighted attention focuses on Jalus and Nasris with a directional jerk of his head. "Go stand out of the way over there. The Fang will be joining us promptly." They follow his instructions obediently and with obvious sulking dread.

In the middle of his instruction to the twins she turns her head and a foot back down the way she had come earlier. "I am to return to my assignment now, please."

He continues to eye her with some amusement at least as well as he was able to in her general direction. "Kir-Moldir can understand a delay in obedience if its for a good cause. Such as now."

She seems to assent to this as she doesn't move, turning her face and foot back to face the elder, but clinically replies, "With all due respect, my Lord, only Kir-Moldir can say what Kir-Moldir understands or allows."

"Does a Master entirely forget a Student across the eons?" He politely counters.

A slight lift of her brow indicating surprise at this new knowledge, followed by a pause and ending with, "Only so long as a student remains, in fact, a student."

"Take a moment to consider the how and why you have turned up in my private library today out of all Eldre'Thalas." He suggests while hunching forward, hands laced at his back as he too, waited.

She does so, keeping her stance and hands clasped as she has been, facing the elder as she waited patiently with an impassive face.

Thankfully for them all, they wouldn't have to wait long, as Saeros comes up from the opposite hallway where he'd disappeared down earlier. Although he must have been interrupted there was no air of terse patience about him. Business as usual. "Wintercrest." He gives in a way that contained both a question and a greeting. The elder nods in his direction before speaking, "I found something of yours hidden away in my library with more teeth than my apprentices were expecting to meet." Saeros was already inspecting the room's damage as well as the twins while the old man spoke and when he stops he picks up. "I'd left her here to study what you had on Common." "Without my knowledge." "Yes." Wintercrest shifts in place. "There's a matter to be settled seeing as yours attacked mine first." "As yours instigated." Listening the the back and forth between them had an odd.. cadence. As if there was far more being said here than what was verbalized aloud. Not to mention that Saeros had no business knowing what had happened in his absence. Things clearly aren't adding up.

If this disjointed imbalance of words bothered Elru she didn't show it, but she certainly was listening with intent, making a note of the pauses, shifts and tones when she could. She paid no mind to the room or the two apprentices, only on the Lord and Saeros.

"Seeing as they both made their own advances I see no reason as to why you shouldn't be allowed to chose." That comment had the twins all too stiff, both staring hard at the floor just before them. Saeros looks to Elru directly then, nodding her over towards the twins. "Who offends you the most?"

Elru doesn't move or look anywhere in particular for a moment before responding, "It hardly matters. They both look the same to me." She levels a half-lidden look at the twins. "... If admissible I want to see them decide who gets chosen. Who they settle on will determine who offends me the most."

While this cases the twins to stiffen even more Saeros simply levels Elru with a flat stare. He repeats only one word. "Choose."

Elru gives a settling nod at that and looks right at the brash one who got all up in her face.

"Jalus. Go with Kir-Moldir." Wintercrest instructs, spurring Nasris to blurt out. "Is he coming back alive?" Saeros answers with a shrug which the elder interprets aloud. "That depends entirely on Jalus." It would be hard to watch, if anyone who had a heart was still in the room to see how leaden Jalus's feet moved to comply with the command as he fell in line a short distance away from Saeros who addresses Elru then as well. "Your current studies are on hold. You'll return when proper. Come along--both of you." Saeros leads the way forward, back into the warren of Eldre'Thalas with Jalus dragging along behind him while both Nasris and Wintercrest watch on in silence.

Elru follows on command falling in step behind Saeros at an appropriate distance not looking at Jalus.

And so they go back the way they came, deeper into the older sections of Eldre'Thalas where Elru's room was kept with their mightily reluctant detainee trailing behind but not daring to stray. They get -rather- close to Elru's own room in fact before Saeros stops them two doors short, opening the heavy stone door with a touch. The area within is.. sadly lacking and dusty from disuse and contained no furniture of any kind. What it did contain were fresh runes Elru could sense along the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. After everyone filed in the door closes once more to seal them within and only mage-light illuminated the room with white light. "I suppose this will do." Saeros idly murmurs before turning back to Elru and Jalus who hugged a little too tightly to the door. For the latter Saeros waved a gestured hand before beginning, "He won't hear us for the moment." The slightest pause for emphasis, "He is my first gift to you."

It took Elru a second to register that they wouldn't be heard by Jalus, and it took another second to register the idea that she was being given a gift, and it throws her off. Blinking rapidly at Saeros she glances over at the other and speaks back at Saeros. "Please, elaborate."

He watches her placidly, "Its exactly as it sounds. You're free to do with him as you will--as long as it excludes a sexual capacity."

Elru glances at Jalus again with pursed lips, brow furrowing. "Free to do with as I will... for how long?"

"As long as he lasts."

Elru's feelings and expressions seem rather mixed and myriad. This was new and almost frightening to her. Still, thoughts and possibilities flashed through her mind as she stares. "... I'll need a little time to prepare."

"You've had plenty of time to prepare for whatever I've had next for you. In fact, I've been rather generous in allowing you these few days to think and operate on your own without demands from me. Now is the time to act even if you are not prepared." The words are given passively and without reproach. It was a simple statement of fact, after all.

Elru looks at Saeros for a moment as if wondering if he were going to remain, before looking back at Jalus and letting her arms at her back unfold, limbs and digits flexing. Her real palms spread and point flat at the ground as she adds her own additional runes to the room, creeping outward from her feet. Swiftly following those runes are sheets and sheets of paper.

Saeros takes this as his cue to edge over towards one wall. A brief tug has him conjuring a simple three-legged stool which he sits on and using the stone behind to lean against. Jalus was quickly glancing between Saeros and Elru at that point and overly mindful of the former's presence as he keeps himself so close to the wall that he might as well be a fixture. There was a corner furthest away from both of them that he starts to shuffle towards.

Elru watches Jalus impassively as she backs up towards her own wall as paper steadily coats every inch of the interior, briefly and only slightly unsettling the stool Saeros sits on, and the feet Jalus stands on. Paradoxically the room remains lit despite the coating, and as the paper finally finishes coating the room Elru presses back against the wall as she seems to meld right into the paper, disappearing from sight.

Despite the obvious threat that Saeros presents in the room Jalus wasn't so afraid of his situation that he wouldn't resist. It wasn't an outward attack so much as protecting his little corner of the room with a wave of fire cast down from his hand around his feet. It singes his robes but fashion was of little consequence when charring up all the paper nearest him was the goal.

Jalus accomplishes setting his immediate area on fire, charring up the place and likely making flames lick at his robes and feet. This effort does not seem to reveal the room proper, and once those flames spread and die down after spreading to a quarter of the room there's a rustling and a flipping of pages as the charred parts are tugged out of sight and fresh paper is laid around Jalus.

As new paper is laid out Jalus reels back into his corner with more fire pouring out around him with a reckless, wide-eyed abandon. He had no idea what awaited him but the only thing he could fight at that moment--and live--was the paper trying to surround him. The longer this process of charring and replacement went on the more fire would lick at the floors and walls. It wasn't a very big room but as more and more fire is used the air starts to grow thin, straining whatever maintenance runes that kept airflow passing in and out of the basically sealed chamber.

Air remains thin, but it doesn't dip down too far below the lethal threshold. Even so, Jalus is welcome to keep burning as he likes, though it will push him to the point of fainting and choking as he starts to see less of the room and more of his smoke and flames. In fact obfuscation of the room seems to be the point as Elru does nothing to make the smoke go away. In this room, suffocation and obfuscation wouldn't be an issue for Saeros. With Jalus' panic and loss of air he probably wouldn't notice Elru delicately making the smoke her own.

People rarely make smart choices when faced with worse fates and the fire continues to spread and grow to the point where not just the paper was on fire but Jalus's robes as well. He was too panicked to realize that he was soon about to go up in flames himself and unless something intervened Elru was about to lose her first 'gift'.

Before Jalus burns up entirely the smoke, ash and flames disperse entirely to nothing revealing an accurate facsimile of her room a couple doors over. Her craft has improved incredibly as it's almost indistinguishable from a real suite. It's simpler, however, as there is simply a couch a little off center in the room. Air should be returning to Jalus' lungs and he'll find himself shuffled towards the center of the room from where he was before. Each wall is identical with its expensive wallpaper. Elru sits lounging in the chair watching Jalus impassively in a clean simple robe, contrasting with Jalus' near nonexistent robes.

While still on fire--Jalus just aims even more flames directly at Elru and the paper surrounding him, refusing to be moved while he had the ability to fight back with a rather effective weapon.

Elru flicks a hand sharply outward at the room as the room itself seems to immediately cave in on Jalus, practically flying as his casting hand, his entirely body is immediately smothered by layers upon layers of paper, too many to burn through at once before he's smothered entirely in an airtight coffin suspended before Elru's seated form.

She'd feel those first layers crisp up within before the fire abruptly chokes itself out and likely the young man within along with it if she left him without air too long. The fire was out--but something needed to be done about the casting part if this process wasn't just about to repeat itself all over again.

Elru furrows her brow with a note of irritation as she raises her hands and takes more active direction in her paper-craft, the layers upon layers of paper withdrawing back to where they had been drawn from. As Elru's fingers work with visible magic to her fingertips Jalus is revealed, but this time chained to the ceiling and shackled at the wrists, with his hands coated still. The shackles and gloves are inscribed, glow slightly and have a chill about them. Elru huffs slightly as if annoyed at the extra work she's putting in. "Your fire is a nuisance."

Jalus is promptly struggling in his bonds like any properly hooked fish as he literally spits fire up at the chains holding his hands above his head with little effect. He could do little else but respond with the absolute venom he felt, "And you're nothing but a puppet dancing on the strings of another marionette." Fear and hate make one say the most dangerous things. Saeros himself was unmoved by the accusation, clearly a pure spectator. "Training to become a new perfect little tool?"

"So what if I'm a tool? We're all tools here." The inscriptions and chill on the chains and shackles become less pronounced but still evident and present as the effect seems to spread out evenly from Jalus to the rest of the room. "Particularly weak tools, even, if you think about it. We need to still be alive to be tools, after all, and I don't want you dead. Not yet anyway."

"What's the point?" He demands. "What's the point of dragging this out? Eager to put on a good show for a pat on the head afterwards?"

"No. If I had my way I would have torn you in half at the library, but now that you're here I want to test your limits. And mine." His chains will slacken enough for him to stand and move a few paces, and his hands will even be free, but he will remain shackled for the time being. Arms unfold from the back wall to flex and extend forward on either side of Elru. One thin bony hand carries a trio of syringes. The other carries a set of blades. "Either I test some drugs on you, or you can keep trying to fight your way out of here." She folds her hands in her lap. "Or I can just kill you."

He draws his head up proudly, "Or I can kill myself and deny you the pleasure."

Elru actually smiles at that, and abruptly his shackles release him. At the same time several more arms unfold from the room walls as they reach for him, aiming to grip his wrists, elbows, knees, ankles, and head. They're quick and persistent things, and there's little doubt that Jalus will manage to inflict some self harm if he truly desired to, but ultimately it'll be clear that the arms work to restrain and suspend him entirely.

There's more fire this time but not enough before he's subdued--the Highborne craft was focused upon Arcane and skill in the other schools wasn't something of a priority. He'd likely have a flame or two licking up the charred remains of his robes that would need putting out.

A paper arm would deftly scuff and pat away the fire on his robes as if doing him a friendly favor. Not nearly as much damage is done to the paper as by now it seems to have adapted to outright fire. The arms will stretch his arms and legs wide and in opposite directions, splaying him like one giant bug as he's tugged painfully. In fact he's probably meant to be tugged like a bug as Elru seems to be paying particularly rapt attention to this part of her playtime with the apprentice.

His discomfort was plain on his face but that doesn't entirely stop that persistent air of stubborn pride. He even goes so far as to clench his jaw stubbornly shut, denying her his speech.

She'll continue to stretch him out painfully, to the point of popping joints out of sockets if it gets that far. She leans forward in her seat watching this, the ways his muscles tense, how tight his jaw clenches, and in anticipation for... something. it's unclear what, but it could be just as simple as a cry of pain.

Jalus's eyes progressively grow wider as he's very literally starting to be pulled apart. It's not until muscles and the tendons beneath stretch to tearing that he cries out, head shaking back and forth. "Stop! For Elune's sake, stop!"

That seemed to satisfy her mostly as the tugging eases up just slightly to stop the worst of the pain. he'll get only a moment of respite before he'll feel a syringe stick into his leg.

It's hard for him not to jerk at the sudden stick. His chest heaves with the half-panicked gasps he made for his breaths as he waited with agonizing dread of what would happen to him next.

If anything he'll feel better, almost refreshed but not quite, as his joints still ache like no other. He'll feel more hyper aware of his joint pain, as well as his physical and mental state in general. It'll hurt when he's abruptly dropped bodily on the ground. A creak, a breeze fanned on him, and if he looks at the source he'll see an open door, as well as dimly hear Elru's voice. "Better run along home before the effect finishes." Elru eyed the prone Jalus as he laid there for several long moments before speaking aloud. "Better run along home before the effect finishes." A paper fan blows a breeze across at Jalus' form as the facsimile of an open door is etched on a wall.

As he's dropped Jalus freezes, gasping past the screaming nerves all alerting him to the fact parts of him were damaged. Looking up towards the door Jalus crawls on all fours towards it with a limping stride, clearly hurt but the lure of freedom too great.

It'll become more clear to him that he's been drugged in some way as the crawl to the open door takes much more distance than it should, but slow steady progress does he make. It's simple enough to shift and slide the paper ground underneath Jalus with a light twirl of her finger, making his crawl to the door crawling a slow one. Then the game becomes clear. An open door frame extends out from the door drawing, as other similar drawings are etched and formed at the sides to be used when ready. Turns. Hallways. Archways. Simple panoramas. A far, far more elaborate setup of a rat on a running wheel.

He crawls, and crawls, and crawls until he exhausts himself with chest rattling pants. Slumping to the group he lays relatively limp, curled inwards against the pulse and throb his joints flared with in time to the beat of his heart.

Elru does some work with her paper and crafts a giant dark colored spider above Jalus, bigger than he was. By the time it was complete she injects two more syringes in at once right on Jalus' other leg, shooting his adrenaline high and narrowing his perception. If he looks back at what stabbed him, he'll be greeted by clacking spider face.

Pain had a way of drawing someone's attention and his head whips around, craning back to see what had harmed him now. An undignified squeal bursts from him as he kicks, straining away from the 'spider' with a burst of focused Arcane directed at it. He doesn't look up, utterly focused on the one that had injured him, as his heart pounds erratically as it was fueled even further by fear.

To give him a touch of hope for the encounter Elru lets her spider take the hit, blowing off a pedipalp with an accompanying synthetic shriek as the spider rears back, then jabs forward with two legs as if to pin him, though Elru doesn't really try. She'll have the spider withdraw and dodge every other attack, but the point was not to win. The point was to watch the two dance. Elru's enjoying this part way too much, having a satisfied blissed expression not altogether different from when Saeros first happened upon Elru manipulating spiders and ants.

It was a plainly losing battle as Jalus was already exhausted both physically and magically at this point. His crawls become desperate lunges, flashes of Arcane become flickers--he even cries for help a couple of times, reaching out in odd ways that react with the wards in the room as if he were calling to another. Still he struggled, straining against his own limitations.

Elru would keep this up forcing Jalus to exhaust himself to collapse once again, patiently, happily even waiting it out. Once prone Jalus would find himself being wrapped up immobile full body by the war-torn spider in a silk that felt more like firm twine.

Which was accompanied by his weak cries. With so much running through his system he wasn't likely to notice the difference in texture. There was nothing left for him to do at this rate aside from give in.

Once wrapped, the spider would drag him, and the rat wheel runs in reverse as the progress he had seemingly made in his crawl to freedom is undone before his eyes till eventually he's brought back to the main door.

Where he lays trussed up as he was and limp as a boneless fish.

Elru stands and wanders over to stand almost but not quite above Jalus at this time to check on the elf for how aware or awake he was, simulating another breeze and creaking noise of door.

As she nears him his eyes weakly track her progress. He was there--although intensely dazed.

Elru huffs lightly down at him, and regardless of whether he'd remain fooled or not she still asks, "And just what are you doing back in this part of Eldre'thalas?"

He opens his mouth to respond but the only thing that comes out is a croak.

A light wave of a hand, keeping the man trussed up, she'd have him suspended in a corner upside down making the blood rush to his head. She'd dismiss the spider, which would fold back into the paper walls, and she would stare at the man a while. The exhaustion, and the relatively short lived drugs running their course, would no doubt knock him out sooner rather than later.

And it was so. With his face a bright purple Jalus is soon no longer conscious as exhaustion drags him under.

Elru would keep standing there, even as she withdrew and dismissed most of the paper except this corner, and seemingly forgot about Saeros being there until she replied aloud in an almost resigned tone, "I'm sick."

He answers her regardless, "Elaborate."

She hangs her head slightly not facing him. "Finding such satisfaction with such manipulation. Whether it is playing God with spiders and ants or playing God with a helpless elf the reaction is the same. Releasing of endorphin. Stress relief. Heightened breath and eye dilation. This is not how a normal elf is supposed to be." It was a candid confession lacking all dancing around the edges that was once her norm. She hugs herself slightly with a soft unhappy noise. "I always knew there was something... off. Different about my mind. Even though I barely spent time around other elves I could still notice it. All this, everything, just makes it more clear."

There's a pregnant pause that drags on before being abruptly broken with a low chuckle. It wasn't mocking but carried the pure tones of genuine humor. Should Elru turn to look Saeros's lips were quirked up into a depreciating smirk. "Take 'comfort' in the knowledge that this strangeness about yourself isn't so alien to those around you. It's not even uncommon."

She did indeed turn her head to see this and she's just plain frowning at him now, though she still carried hints of that morality-laced sadness to her features. "So what you mean to say is that in actuality I 'fit in' more than I was told I did?"

"Idril is -not- an appropriate representation of 'normal'." Was his first flat remark. "Look around you. Aside from her--how have you been treated? How do Highborne treat other Highborne? They're all spiders sitting in their carefully spun webs waiting for a hapless meal to lure in and when nothing is forthcoming.. trickery and deception. Cannibalism."

She flinches at the call out to Idril and her raising, but does not argue, the shift in her expression signifies her seeing truth in his words. "What a wretched way to live... How am I to survive in such a world for so long, let alone thrive?" It's a question she should have asked aloud sooner, but better late than never. "As capable as you are, Kir-Moldir, you're not always going to be there to prolong my life."

"A little slow, but correct. I cannot be there to hold your hand against every starving newcomer but I can equip you to handle as much as you are able and increase those chances. As I have been doing." He tacks on with pointed dryness.

She looks at him in long consideration of his words. "... How'd I do today?"

"In a word--ignorantly."

She turns to face him. "Elaborate, please. I want to do better."

Saeros draws in a slow breath that carried an air of patient suffering. "Do you recall your first choice today?"

"I remember where I chose to take my assigned reading, and how I, chose to react to the two apprentices." She frowns a little eyeing the floor as if just remembering the incident in its entirety and unpleasantly.

"Describe the personalities of both twins."

"One was brash, hot-headed, prideful, didn't think his actions through. The other was more withdrawn, collected, thoughtful, cautious."

"If I were to kill or otherwise irreparably harm Idril would I not gain your ire?"

"You would."

"Do you think the bond between twins would be even stronger, causing a more potent reaction?"

She purses her lips a bit. "You are right, it would be. Such would have been true regardless of which brother I chose, though."

"And still, you've made a choice in which enemy you preferred. Which of the two brothers do you believe would be the worst of the two to face?"

It dawns on Elru then as she gives a disappointed sigh. "If I had a clearer mind as I do now I'd have noticed sooner to be more wary of the cautious one. How foolish of me."

"If we could all have clear minds to make our judgments then people would be far more cunning than any of us could survive."

She looks back up at Saeros as she more quietly recounts, "Back at the library... When this one suddenly went aggressive on me, I forgot I was in the library. All I saw was paper."

You defended yourself." He confirms.

She opens her mouth, then shuts it, then nods. "I defended myself."

"You've something very few at your age have cultivated and survived. Its an additional aspect that can be used but when not--leashed. You'll find it very hard, if not impossible, to do away with entirely so I suggest you not make the attempt. It'll only handicap you further."

She looks almost uncomprehending at him though a part of her seems to, as she goes through a similar mixture of clashing emotions like she was wont to do back when Saeros returned to her life until her face settles on a kind of numbness. Absentmindedly she rests her hand on her cheek and jaw, and grips, and squeezes, and then tears off a layer of paper that comes off more wetly and sticky than before, tainted underneath with blood, before she sheds herself of it entirely. The wounds on her body, on her jaw, neck, chest and gut, have mostly healed by now but despite that she rubs and presses at an exposed cut on her chin. "It barely hurt, you know. Compared to our bond, this was nothing."

"Coincidence?"

"Confirmation. I can be wary of the world. But I have a little less reason to be afraid of it."

He raises a long eyebrow at her before he repeats himself with a little more added on, "Do you believe your higher threshold of pain to be a happy coincidence?"

"No. No, I don't. I should thank you, but I don't know if you'd accept thanks from me."

His next question might come out of left field for her. "How would you show your appreciation?" The tone and eye contact with the question were level.

She blinks once, peering at him. "I'd show it however you deem fit and in a way that pleases you, but..." At this point she's a little shy, but a more plain shyness of youth rather than a wariness of him. "I don't know what you like or derive pleasure from. Aside from your job as The Fang." Then a weak but still self-humoring chuckle. "And I somehow doubt you'd be impressed by any attempts of mine to try to mimic you."

"Do I want to be impressed?"

"Well I know you don't want to be bored."

He doesn't say anything but looks towards her with that expectant air he managed to convey when he wanted her to continue.

She wasn't expecting that, but she tries regardless. "You don't, expect to be impressed. Very little would impress you at this age. But you do have standards. Standards that are well above mediocrity, with no tolerance for anything lackluster. Any appreciation I show you you'd eye with the same judgement as you would any action I do as part of my growth. I think."

"Does this dissuade you?"

She shakes her head.

Instead of quirking up Saeros's lips gain this.. strange sort of half-smile if one could both frown and smile at the same time. "I suppose that's a fair enough answer."

She stares at him a moment before something seems to perk up within her as she straightens a bit. "May I attempt a small gesture of appreciation right now?"

His expression smooths back into a more normal layer of passivity in response. "Proceed."

For a moment she's immobile as if from nerves, but she approaches him without wariness or fear until she was right up in front of him, practically against him. If he would allow it she'd reach up to almost wrap her arms around his neck but it was less a hug and more a gesture meant to tilt his head down, though she'd lean up on toes if needed. After gazing at his features like this for a split second she'd close her eyes and press her lips to his slightly parted. It'd all be so completely ordinary and mundane if not for the fact that her tongue and the inside of her mouth was bloody. She'd bitten her tongue at some point without flinching before kissing him with an open mouth.

As was the way of anything Saeros had a hand in, it was entirely in the way he wanted it--or not at all. Either he recognized her intent or defended himself from it was difficult to discern at first. She'd intended to wrap her arms around him, that was true, but they certainly didn't end up there by the time she finished the gesture. There was obvious pain to the suddenness in which both arms end up behind her, held tightly by the wrists and pulled up to the middle of her back where the joints in her shoulders would strain. If her intent was still on kissing him he met it with a casual sense of interest with eyes not closed but lowly lidded and focused upon her. What he'd not expected was the taste of blood in her mouth, drawing a sharp inhale and the hand holding both wrists tightening to the point of nearly cutting off circulation. His tongue delicately sifts through her mouth to find exactly where she'd bitten herself with more interest than someone rightly should have in such a thing. After he had his 'answers' their kiss became something more heavy in the way his lips moved against her own and teased out responses with frustratingly slow strokes and brushes.

She gave a surprised grunt in pain as she tensed up at the sudden way her wrists were pinned behind her but she did not resist it, simply went with it as this was how Saeros willed it, and once Saeros began kissing heavily and in somewhat approaching earnestness she'd meet his lips and tongue with her own. She'd bitten through her tongue with a fang creating a rough cut, creating a steady bleed that she does not shy from, that she made for him. While she's no kisser, there's a willingness, perhaps even expectation to learn. The slow strokes and brushes do indeed cause a little frustration, as she furrows her brow and slips in gentle growls in between heated contacts of their lips. She even dips her tongue into his mouth in turn, staining the outside of his lips slightly with her own blood. It would almost be cute, as it was textbook Elru in how she'd respond negatively to teasing and how she'd refuse to fail at a task, even if that was kissing.

A pain she'd find steadily increasing as the contact drew on to reach a peak by the time she made her own advances on him. It wasn't entirely coincidence, rarely anything seemed to be with Saeros, that the muscles in her shoulders began to strain to the point of tearing and where the bone was in clear danger of being popped out of socket as he drew back. There was no smiling now nor words of praise but a sense of growing stillness she had a chance at shifting one way or the other in the silence it took to grow.

She's trembling slightly, from the heated contact and from the pain in her shoulders and arm sockets. Panting softly as sweat beads on her forehead she eyes his impassive silence with her own strain with her heavy lids, lips parted as she takes a moment to lick her own lips clean. She doesn't shy away or cringe from the pain. Rather she seems to deliberately hold herself at that strained peak where it hurts the most. It could be masochism, or it could be indecisiveness, but whereas Elru always shied away before, she refused to now. Maintaining eye contact all the while, with a slight whimper followed by a quiet gasp, she pushed. One arm out of her socket she was now closer to him. She breathed heavily on him, but there was no gritting of teeth, no tears.

Elru would find her arms released but.. very abruptly not where she expected herself to be. It had to be some trick of bent time--if not for the fact that her chest hurt so much as she lay on the floor nearly in the very middle of the room. The reality was that Saeros had pushed her, though pushing was a kind word for the strike of his palm to her chest, away from him to have her where she was now. Somewhere above her felt like ice that made the floor and her papers a warm comfort. "And we had just had this conversation." It was Saeros's voice but.. there was a 'more' to it.

She clutched at her chest, eyes clenched tight, breathing raggedly as she half curled up. "Wh-Which conversation..."

"About clear minds."

She pants, and heaves, then manages a self-depreciating chuckle as she rolls onto her back staring upward. "Yes.. So we did.."

There's a shuffling as Saeros makes his way over to her where he can stand above Elru with one long length of runed dagger in one hand. "Be wary in how far you take eagerness with me. I won't be played." Everything was still calm and casual aside from that odd note and the obvious threat of a weapon.

She eyes the dagger, then drags her eyes to meet his again, her breathe steadying, but just barely. "How am I supposed to respond to pain, big or small, Kir-Moldir?"

He gives a singular shake of his head to indicate she was on the wrong track. Instead he gives, "Offer. Never take."

A furrowing of her brow shows her struggle in understanding, though she tries. "Offer. Never take."

He simply looks at her before adding on with a slow drawl. "Yourself."

She stares at him a while longer, gulping, then gives a nod of affirmation. "Forgive me for overstepping my boundaries, Kir-Moldir. I was a little too eager."

He gives her one last, lingering stare before moving on towards the door where it opens and closes behind him in a manner she'd be accustomed to. Seems she'd be staying with her 'toy' for now.

Elru will settle for napping on the floor for now.

#world of warcraft #roleplay #highborne #moon guard #torture

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anavoliselenu · 7 years ago

Text

Manwhore chapter 1

DREAM JOB

I walked into Helen’s office this morning certain she was going to fire me. It isn’t really my boss’s job to fire me. It’s HR’s. But the HR department has been cut. Edge, the magazine I have written for and loved since I graduated from college, is hanging by a thread.

Three steps inside the cluttered room stacked with old magazines, ours and our competitors’, and my breakfast—coffee with two sugars, and strawberry jam on whole-wheat toast—turns into a stone inside my stomach.

Without even looking up from the folder in her hand, Helen signals to the chair across hers.

“Selena, sit down.”

I sit silently, a thousand things leaping to my tongue: I can do better; I can do more; let me do more, two articles a week rather than one. Even: I will work for free until we can find our feet.

I can’t afford to work for free. I have rent, I’m still paying off my college loan, and I have a mother I love with a health condition and no insurance. But I also love my job. I don’t want to be let go. I have never wanted to be anything else other than what I am now, at this moment, as my fate rests in her hands.

So it’s with dread and an impending sense of loss that I sit here and wait for Helen to finally lower that folder and look at me. And I wonder, as our eyes meet, if the next story I have to tell in my life is the one of her firing me.

I am in love with stories. How they shape our lives. How they mark people who don’t even know us. How they can impact us even when an event didn’t exactly occur in our own lives.

The first things I ever fell in love with were the words my mother and grandmother told me about my dad. In those words I got what I didn’t have in real life—a dad. I would collect them into groups, memorize the stories they formed. Where he’d taken my mother on their first date (a Japanese restaurant), if his laugh was funny (it was), what his favorite beverage was (Dr Pepper). I grew up in love with stories and with all the facts and details that enabled me to shape, in my mind, memories of my father that have been with me for life.

My aunts said I was dreaming when I said I wanted words to be a career, but my mother kept quoting Picasso’s mother. “Picasso’s mother told him if he got into the army, he’d be a general. If he became a monk, he’d be the pope. Instead he was a painter and became Picasso. That’s exactly how I feel about you. So do, Selena, what you love.”

“I would do it more happily if you were doing what you love too,” I always replied, miserable for her.

“What I love is taking care of you,” she always came back with. She’s a lovely painter but nobody else thinks so but me and one tiny gallery that went bankrupt months after its inception. So my mother has a normal job, and the Picasso in her has quieted.

But she’s sacrificed so much to give me an education and more. Since I’m actually a little shy with strangers, I didn’t have encouragement from a lot of my teachers. None of them believed I had the stomach for hard-core reporting, so I ran with the only thing I could: the sole motivation of my mother and her belief in me.

Now I’ve worked at Edge for almost two years, the job cuts started over three months ago, and my colleagues and I have all been afraid we’ll be the next. Everyone, including me, is giving 110 percent of what we’ve got. But to a flailing business, it’s not enough. There doesn’t seem to be any way of salvaging Edge except with a huge investment that doesn’t seem forthcoming, or with stories much bigger than what we’ve been running.

The moment Helen opens her mouth to speak, I dread hearing the words We’ve got to let you go. I’m already thinking of a story, an idea, I can pitch for my next column, something edgy that could put our name out there and somehow allow me to hang on to my job a little longer.

“You’ve been on my mind, Selena,” she says. “Are you currently seeing anyone?”

“Um. Seeing anyone? No.”

“Well, that’s just what I wanted to hear!” She shuffles her paperwork to the side and pulls out one of the magazines from the shelf, dropping it on the desk between us. “See, I’ve got a proposition for you. It might require you to bend your morals a little bit. In the end, I think it will ultimately be rewarding for you.” She shows me an old magazine, a rueful smile on her lips. “This was our first issue. Fifteen years ago.”

“I love it!” I say.

“I know you do—you’ve always taken an interest in how we started. Which is why I like you, Selena,” she says without any warmth at all. Just a fact, it seems. “You know, Edge used to stand for something. All those years ago, we weren’t afraid of breaking rules, venturing where other magazines wouldn’t. You’re the only one who seems to have preserved that. The Sharpest Edge is always our column with the most comments. You focus on the trends and give your raw, unfiltered opinion. Even when people don’t agree with your opinion, they respect you for the fact that you share it so honestly.

“This is why I suppose you’re in my office now, instead of Victoria.” She jerks her chin in the direction of outside where my greatest competitor, Victoria, must be busy in her cubicle.

Vicky. She’s the only other overachiever at Edge and somehow always lucks out at overachieving more than me. I don’t want enmity with Victoria. But it still feels like there’s a popularity contest here I didn’t sign up for. She always seems so damn happy when Helen isn’t pleased with what I wrote, and sometimes I can’t write a word simply because I’m worrying about what Victoria will come up with.

“See, I’m thinking of ruffling some feathers. If we want to stay in business, it’s becoming clearer and clearer we need something more drastic. Something that will make people take notice of Edge. Are you with me?”

“I agree. If there’s anything to breathe new life into Edge—”

“We’re doing so poorly, we’ve all grown so scared; we’re all reporting from safe, scared places, afraid to push the button in case we explode. We’re already withering here. We need to write about the topics that scare us, fascinate us . . . and nobody fascinates this city more than our billionaire bachelors. Do you know who I’m talking about?”

“The playboys?”

Her lips twist. “The worst of them all.” She pulls out another magazine. I stare at the cover, which says Justin or Sinner?

“Justin Justin,” I whisper.

“Who else?”

The man staring back at me has a perfectly structured face, beautiful lips, and eyes greener than the bottom of a beer bottle. His smile is all mischief. It says he likes to cause trouble and, most of all, that he likes getting away with it. But there’s something very closed off and somehow icy in his eyes. Oh yeah, those green eyes are made of green ice.

“I’ve heard of him,” I admit, starting to get nervous. “I wouldn’t really be alive in Chicago if I hadn’t.”

Ruthless, they say.

A complete manwhore, they say.

And so ambitious he’d put Midas to shame. Oh yeah. They say Justin won’t rest until he owns the world.

“Victoria thinks that you’re too young and inexperienced to take on such a risqué project, Selena. But you’re single, and she’s not.”

“Helen, you know how much I enjoy writing about trends, but you also know that I really want to write bigger stories, stories about people’s homes, security. I want to earn that chance, and if this is how I can do that, then I won’t let you down. What kind of story do you see for him?”

“An exposé.” She grins. “One where we get to hear juicy little tidbits about him. I’m thinking about four things, specifically. How he manages to stay so calm and in control all the time. What’s the deal with his father? What role do all these women play in his life? And why, oh why does he have this obvious affinity for doing things in fours? Now”—she slaps her hand on the desk for emphasis—“in order to get to the meat . . . Let’s be honest, Selena: you must try to get close. Lie, little white lies. Ease into his world. Justin isn’t an easy man to access, which is why nobody’s been able to figure out even one of these things, much less all four.”

I’ve been listening. My curiosity is fully engaged. But I’ve started to squirm. Lie. Little white lies. True, I’ve lied sometimes. I’m human. I’ve done right things and wrong things, but I’d rather stick to the right side. I enjoy my sleep, thank you. But this is the opportunity I’ve wanted since I started college.

“And if Justin wants to make a play for you,” Helen continues, “then be prepared. You might need to play a little bit back. Can you do that?”

“I believe so,” I say, but I sound much more confident than I feel. And I just . . . I’m not sure how many opportunities like this I’ll get. I’ll never be able to move into reporting things that are important to me if I don’t make a stronger effort to be heard. Tackling a topic that fascinates the public so much will give me a voice, and I really, really want that voice.

“Do you think you can do this? Or . . .” She glances outside.

No. I can’t bear for Victoria to get the story. It’s not a pill I want to swallow. In fact, it’s downright bitter, and I don’t want to swallow it.

“I’ll do it. I’m hungry. I want a good story,” I assure Helen.

“We can always wait and find you another good story, Selena,” she says, playing devil’s advocate now.

“I’ll do it. He’s my story now.”

“He’s Chicago’s story. And Chicago’s darling. He has to be handled with care.”

“He’s the story I want to tell,” I assure her.

“That’s what I like to hear.” She laughs. “Selena, you are absolutely beautiful. You are a doll. You’re funny and you work hard, you give it your all, but for all that you’ve lived, you’re still an innocent. You’ve been here two years, and even before you graduated you were working it. But you’re still a young girl playing in a world for grown-ups. You’re too young to know there are protocols with the rich in the city.”

“I know we usually cater to the rich.”

“Just remember, Justin could crush the magazine. He can’t see it coming. By the time he does, he’ll see his face on the newsstand.”

“He won’t catch me,” I mumble.

“Okay, Selena, but I want intimate revelations. I want every detail. I want to feel like I stepped into his shoes and walked his everyday walk. What is it like to be him? You’re going to tell the whole city.” She smiles happily and wakes up her computer with a wiggle of her mouse. “I look forward to hearing all about it. So off you go now, Selena. Find the story in the story and write it.”

Holy crap, Livingston. You’ve got your story!

I’m so dazed and exhilarated, I’m euphoric as I head to the door, fairly trembling with the need to start working.

“Selena,” she calls as I open the glass door, my stomach in a whole new tangle. She nods her head. “I believe in you, Selena.”

I stand there, completely awed that I finally, finally have her trust. I didn’t expect it would come with a huge fear of failure on my shoulders. “Thanks for the chance, Helen,” I whisper.

“Oh, and one last thing. Justin isn’t normally accessible to the press. But there have been exceptions, and I can think of a way you could get lucky. Check out his new social media site, Interface. Use it as an approach. He might not like the press, but he’s a businessman and will use us to his advantage.”

I nod with some self-confidence and a ton more self-doubt, and as soon as I’m outside, I exhale nervously.

Okay, Livingston. Focus and let’s do this.

I’ve got so much information on Justin that I email myself dozens and dozens of links to continue researching tonight at my apartment. I place a call to his office and talk to a representative, asking for an interview. She assures me they’ll let me know. I cross my fingers and say, “Thank you, I’m available anytime. My boss is very excited to run a piece on Mr. Justin’s latest venture.”

Done for the day, I head home. My place is close to Blommer Chocolate Company, in the Fulton River District. I wake up to the smell of chocolate in the air. My building is five stories high, on the edge of downtown.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe I’m living my dream, or at least half of it; I wanted the briefcase, the mobile phone, the heels and matching jacket and skirt. I wanted to be self-sufficient enough to buy my mother the car of her dreams, and a home of her own where she wouldn’t get evicted because she couldn’t pay the rent. I still want those things.

Unfortunately my market is tough. A freelancer before I even graduated college, I had no steady income. You live by your muse, and she’s not always ready with ideas for you. Then I answered an advertisement in the Chicago Tribune. Edge was looking for weekly columnists for topics such as fashion, sex and dating, innovations, decorating tips, and even fancy pet discoveries. The office covered two floors in an old building downtown, and it hardly represented the corporate environment I’d envisioned.

The top floor is littered with reporters at their desks. The floors are wood, the editorial offices peppered with bright colors and satin cushions, always full of the buzz of phones and people chattering. Instead of the business suits I imagined wearing to work, I write in an oversize, trendy T-shirt-with-an-attitude and a pair of socks that have the words I Believe on the toes. It’s a crazy magazine, as crazy as some of the stories and columns we put out—and I love it.

But bloggers are putting us out of work, our circulation growing tinier by the second. Edge needs something cutting-edge, and I’m desperate to prove to my boss that I can bring it to her.

“Gina!” I call to my roommate when I stroll into our two-bedroom flat.

“We’re over here!” I hear Gina call.

She’s in her bedroom, with Wynn. They’re my best friends. Wynn’s a redhead, freckled, pink and sweet, very unlike the dark, sultry Gina.

We’re like Neapolitan ice cream. In height, Gina and I are the tallest, while Wynn is an elf. Gina and I try to use logic; Wynn is “Team Feelings” all the way. I’m the career girl, Wynn is the nurturer, and Gina is the sexpot who hasn’t yet realized she could use men as her personal dildos (if she wanted to). She doesn’t want to. Really.

Dropping my bag at the door, I spot their huge Chinese food picnic and join them on the floor.

They’re streaming an old episode of Sex and the City.

We eat in silence and watch a little bit, but I’m not even paying attention to the screen. I’m too wound up, and finally blurt, “I’ve got my story.”

“What?” They both stop eating.

I nod. “I’ve got my first full story. It might be three pages, four—hell, five. Depending on how much information I end up with.”

“Selena!” they yell in unison and come toward me.

“No tackle hugs! Shit! You spilled the rice!”

They squeal and then ease back, and Wynn goes to get the Dustbuster. “So what’s it about?” she asks.

“Justin Justin.”

“Justin Justin?”

“What about him?” Wynn asks.

“It’s . . . almost undercover.” They’re practically popping out of their skin with anticipation. “I get to meet him.”

“How?!”

“I’m trying to get an interview to ask about Interface.”

“Aha.”

“But I’ll also be researching him in secret. I’ll be . . . unlayering him,” I tease.

“SELENA!” Gina bangs my arm, knowing I’m usually straitlaced.

Wynn shakes her head. “That man is hot!”

“What do you two know about him?” Gina asks.

I pull out my laptop. “I was just online liking all his social pages, and the guy has over four million Instagram likes.”

We hop onto other sites and check out his Twitter feed.

I’m not impressed by what I read.

“His rep wouldn’t give me an appointment—she wrote me down on a list. I wonder if I’ll have better luck reaching out on social media.”

“Let’s look for a smexy profile pic in case Justin himself sees it.”

“Not happening,” I say.

“Come on, Selena, you have to make yourself as appealing as possible. This one.” She points at a picture in one of my old social media albums where I’m wearing a secretarial skirt and blouse, but the three buttons between my breasts are about to burst.

“I hate that shirt.”

“Because it shows off what you’ve got. Come on, let’s do it.”

I change my profile picture, then send him a message.

Mr. Justin, this is Selena Livingston with Edge. I’d love it if you granted me the opportunity for a personal interview in regard to your rising new star, Interface. I’ve put in the request through your office as well. I’m available anytime. . . .

I include all my details and shoot it off.

“Okay, fingers crossed,” I murmur with butterflies in my stomach.

“And toes.”

Later, after Wynn goes home and Gina goes to sleep, I head to my bed. I settle on my pillow, my laptop on my lap, sucking on a Fruit Roll-Up. “Interesting reading,” I say to an online picture of the man. I stay up until midnight, reading more and more. I’ve already dug up quite the dirt on him.

Justin Kyle Preston Logan Justin. Twenty-seven years old. His family is such old money in Chicago, he got a headline the day he was born. At age five, he was in the hospital with meningitis, and the world was on pins and needles to see if he’d make it.

At age six, he’d already earned a black belt in karate, and on the weekends he flew with his socialite mother from one state to the next on one of his father’s jets. At thirteen, he’d already kissed most girls in school. At fifteen, he’d been the world’s biggest player and smoothest liar. At eighteen, he was the perfect bastard, and rich to boot. At twenty, he’d lost his mother but was too busy skiing at a Swiss alpine village to reach the funeral on time.

By twenty-one, he and his two best friends, Callan Carmichael and Tahoe Roth, had become the most notorious trust-fund babies of our generation.

He’s the owner of four Bugattis: license plates BUG 1, BUG 2, BUG 3, and BUG 4. He has houses all over the world. Luxury cars. Dozens of gold watches, including a rose gold perpetual calendar he bought at auction for $2.3 million. He’s a collector, you could say. Of companies, toys, and, apparently, women.

Justin is an only child, and after inheriting his mother’s millions and displaying an uncanny flair for business during the following years, he became not only a billionaire but an absolute symbol of power as well. Not political power, but the good, old-fashioned power that comes with having money. Justin isn’t linked to the shady dealings of the Chicago political machine, but he can press that machine’s buttons if he wants to. Every politician knows this—which is why being on the playboy’s good side is in their best interest.

Justin doesn’t back just anyone. The public, somehow, trusts that Justin doesn’t give a shit about what they think—he won’t back anyone he doesn’t plan to own, so, indirectly, anyone backed by Justin can’t be owned by anyone else. He’s the champion of the underdog. Using his substantial inheritance, Justin became a venture capitalist at a very young age, funding the tech projects of many of his Ivy League school buddies, many of which soared to success, making Justin a few hundred million wealthier than his own father. He still manages venture capital investments from within the offices of M4. Named for his initial and his favorite number, M4 is a company he created in those early years when several of his investments ended up listing on Nasdaq—one for a few billion, to boot.

Latest cover of the Enquirer—

Justin Justin: Our Favorite Bad Boy, Revealed

How many women has he slept with?

Why isn’t he interested in marriage?

How he became America’s hottest manwhore bachelor

And more!

Twitter:

@JustinJustin I wish I’d never laid eyes on you! #eatshitanddie

YOU’RE FUCKING DEAD! @JustinJustin you fucked my girlfriend you’re so fucking DEAD

Free drinks anyone? @JustinJustin paying at Blue Bar downtown!

Facebook wall:

Hey Mal, remember me? I gave you my number last week. Call or message me!

Justin—drinks next weekend, I’m in town with the wife. (Not that I’d bring her. She’s fawned over you enough.) PM me to set a place.

Looking good in the yacht pics, Justin. Have room for a few more? My friends and I would love to party with you again! :) XOXO

Wow. “You’re a real gem, aren’t you?” I whisper, slamming my laptop shut around midnight. I bet half the things on the internet are completely overblown and untrue, which is why, of course, I need more reliable research—firsthand research. I grin and check the time, realizing it’s too late to tell my mother that I’ve finally got my story.

NEW RESEARCH

Twitter:

@JustinJustin please follow me on Twitter!

@JustinJustin to throw the first ball at Cubs game

My personal inbox:

EMPTY.

I’ve already got a two-inch-thick file on Justin Justin, but no call from his PR contact.

Today’s plans with my mother are a no-go too.

I was supposed to meet her to show our support for our community’s End the Violence campaign, but she calls to say that she’s not going to make it. Her boss asked her to cover for someone. “I’m sorry, darling. Why don’t you ask one of the girls to go with you?”

“Don’t worry, Mother, I will. Take your insulin, okay?”

I know she takes it, but I can’t help mentioning it every time we call. I obsess about her like that.

In fact, I worry about my mom so much, Gina and Wynn worry I’m going to make myself sick over it. I want to get a big cushion of savings so I know I can take care of her insurance and be sure she has a good home and good healthy food, and good care, too. I want to give my mom everything she’s given me so she can retire and finally do what she loves. Everybody deserves to do what they love. Her love for me and her desire to provide for me as much as she could have held her back. I want to do well enough that now she gets to follow her dreams.

This exposé could lead to so many more opportunities, that one door opening to a plethora of new ones.

I’m clicking Justin Justin links like crazy when Gina finally pads out of her bedroom in her comfiest outfit.

“I told you it needs to be something you won’t mind getting paint on,” I remind her. “Aren’t those your favorite jeans?”

“Oh fuck, I heard that! Why did I forget when I went into my closet and saw these?” She thumps back into her room.

An hour before noon, at a corner of the park near the basketball courts, Gina and I—along with what looks to be several dozen people—finally gather in anticipation of slapping our paint-covered hands onto a mural-size canvas.

“We’ve all lost someone to this fight. Our loved ones, our grocer, a friend . . .” one of the organizers is saying.

I was two months old when I lost my dad.

All I know is from my mother’s account: that he was an ambitious man, hardworking, and full of big dreams. He swore to her that I would never have to work . . . he was obsessed with giving us the ideal life. We didn’t ask for it, but it didn’t matter to my dad.

All it took was one gun, and none of it happened.

I didn’t get to have a memory of his eyes, gray, supposedly like mine. Never heard his voice. Never knew if, in the mornings, he’d be grumpy like Gina’s dad or sweet like Wynn’s. I remember the neighbors bringing pie for years as I grew up. Their daughters coming over to play with me. I remember playing with other people’s kids too, my mother taking me over to play with other children who had lost someone to violence.

Now, twenty-three years after my father died, every time something bad happens I wish we could make it stop, and I never want to forget how it feels, this wanting to make it stop.

We’ve been criticized over our methods of pleading for a safer city—some say we’re too passive, others that it’s pointless—but I think that even the quietest of voices deserve to be heard.

Per one of the organizers’ instructions, I pour a half an inch of red paint into my oversize plastic tray, and then I plant my hand on the surface. Thick red paint spreads to my fingertips.

“We’re putting our hands on this huge mural as a symbol to stop the violence in the streets, in our communities, in our city, in our neighborhoods,” the organizer continues.

My phone buzzes in my left butt-cheek pocket.

“All right, now,” the woman hollers.

On the count of three—one, two, three!—I press my hand to the wall, while Gina does the same, her hand red like mine and a little bit bigger.

Once we’ve all left our prints, we hurry to the water fountains to clean up. Gina leans over my shoulder and I yelp and try to ease away.

“Dude, you’re getting paint all over me!” I cry, laughing as I dry my hands and step aside to let her wash. While she scrubs off her paint, I pluck my phone out.

And my stomach takes a dive because I’ve got a reply.

MESSAGE

Justin Justin—

Ms. Livingston, this is Dean, Mr. Justin’s press coordinator. We have a ten-minute opening today at 12 p.m.

So I get that notification right now, Saturday, at like 11:18 a.m.

“Shit, I got it!” I tell Gina as I show her the message. But instead of high-fiving me because I freaking landed this and I rock, she glances pointedly at my coveralls.

“Oh no,” I groan. “I can’t see him like this!”

“Okay, take my belt.”

“OMG, really? I look ridiculous!”

She ties it around my waist and cinches it. “Selena, focus. There’s no store around, you don’t have time to go change.”

We share panicked looks, then we both survey my clothes. I’m now wearing a jean coverall with a tank top beneath and a red belt, with paint splats here and there. “I look like an absolute slut on a washing day!”

“You have paint on your cheek,” says Gina, wincing on my behalf.

I groan and whisper to the universe: Next time you make one of my dreams come true, can I please be dressed for the occasion?

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