ωєιѕѕ ѕ¢нηєє (notmadeofstone) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-12-27 02:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !trigger warning, elsa of arendelle, weiss schnee |
Who: Weiss and Elsa (Ice Queens), also Jacques Schnee, Weiss's asshole dad.
What: They are having a very bad day.
When: Before/During/After this message
Where: At the Schnee home in Boston, MA
Rating/Warnings: R, Warnings for implied torture, kidnapping, and shady threats.
Status: Complete
Elsa could hold her drink. Seven years in London had helped her build a tolerance even if she was never a heavy drinker. But the world swam around her as she stumbled out of the bar, grabbing for the wall to steady her. She missed, hands landing on someone’s shoulders. Her words were slurred. “Sorry…”
She continued down the street, looking for a cab and trying to remember if she was getting an Uber when two men blocked her path. She staggered back, not liking the look of them, flinging her hand out and freezing the snow beneath their feet. They both went down and she whirled, shakily running in the opposite direction until something heavy struck her forehead.
Returning to consciousness was like swimming through strawberry jelly. When she opened her eyes there was a bright light in her face, and she was alone, laying on a cot, wearing a medical gown and covered with a thick rich blanket. Elsa thought that her head might hurt, if she could get through the fog. Even her anxiety was on a low ebb as she looked around. A bottle hung off of a stand, a tube running to her arm with a slow but steady drip of some kind of liquid.
“What…”
Oh. She blinked her eyes slowly, and tried to lift her arms, but they were strapped down. A blinking red light drew her attention to a camera pointed at her. If she had the energy, she’d panic, her mind going to dark, dark places.
“Do you think she’ll smile for us?” Jaques asked, standing behind Weiss’s chair where he’d forced her to watch from the moment Elsa’s drink had been drugged. “She’s quite fetching, I can see how she was able to bewitch you. But don’t you see, my dear? This is your fault. Your punishment. And if you continue to step out of line…”
He leaned down, voice low in his daughter’s ear. A bluff, or the truth, or somewhere in between it didn’t matter. He could twist Weiss and that was entirely the point. Power. Always power. “Have you ever heard of the dark web? The things you can find there. The people you can hire. Or purchase. And a beautiful woman like that? I have friends with such interests. Though I’ve always wondered what it would be like... The video would be worth a mint in bitcoin.”
He straightened, leaving the meaning of his words to Weiss’s imagination and studying the tv. He decided to twist the knife. Weiss had to be disciplined, her heart cut out. Weiss had to be more like him. “Disobey me further, and Whitley will be my heir, not you.”
Weiss had tried to warn someone about Elsa's kidnapping, using the only form of communication she'd had left: her scroll. But though Jacques initially had no idea what it was, or its function, he'd caught her typing her message and immediately confiscated it. That was the last piece of hope she'd had, and most of what had remained was hope for others. She'd given up on hope for herself months ago.
Her father was focused on crushing her under his boot, stamping out every form of free will she'd exhibited, and shaping her into something he could use. It was exactly like the dreams, only this Jacques? Her real father? Was far more terrifying.
She'd folded her hands in her lap and done her best to put her thoughts anywhere but on the monitors as he forced her to watch it all. By the time Elsa had woken up in her new prison, Weiss's fingernails had bitten bloody half moons into her palms.
Part of her still had enough life in her to fight back, but not while Elsa's life was threatened. In that way, her father had her exactly where he wanted her. So she nodded her head slowly, even while her emotions raged inside. "Yes... father."
Elsa’s eyes darted around, trying to get a sense of where she was. She was so tired, but despite that, tried to move, to thrash her heavy limbs, to dislodge that needle in her arm.
“Very good,” Jacques said, standing straighter and adjusting his tie. “So let us come to an understanding about what, exactly, is going to happen.”
He watched his daughter’s face as he picked up a microphone. He handed it to Weiss. “I want you to tell her why she is there, and what will happen to her if you’re disobedient.”
Careful to hide her cut palms, Weiss took the microphone in her hands. They were shaking just slightly, and she couldn't force them to stop as she lifted it to her lips. What was she supposed to say? There was no way to offer Elsa much hope, no way to sneak in a message while her father was listening in.
"Elsa..." She started, trying to keep her voice even. "You're here because... you have twisted my mind into deviant behaviour and my father needs to teach me a lesson. I have been... disobedient and soft, and allowed you to ruin me, my reputation, and that of my family name. If I don't obey him from now on, he will punish me by hurting you."
A tear slid down Elsa's cheek and then froze, forming a brief pattern of frost on her face before it melted. Elsa exhaled shakily, blinking her eyes as she focused on the camera.
If Weiss didn't care, she wouldn't bother obeying her father, someone that Elsa knew she hated.
It was a thin kernel of hope and despite her situation she was kind of relieved. This all explained everything. And Jacques, it seemed, was quite intent on destroying them both emotionally.
And that anxiety welled up again, too dull to really do anything but make her queasy; would he even keep his word and what would happen to her?
She rolled her head to the side, half to hide the expression on her face, and half to look at the bottle and the tube. Everything was so heavy, but...the liquid in the tube, she could feel it. She just couldn't make her powers respond.
Maybe a little foolishly, but also defiantly, she slurred out three words. "Still...love you."
If that was somehow deviant, so be it.
Jacques simply looked at Weiss expectantly.
"My emotions were a mistake. They weren't real. I don't... love you. Not like that. I never did." Some part of Weiss, deep inside where she still felt emotions, cracked as she said the words she knew her father was expecting. But she was as good at acting as she was at singing, and her voice didn't betray the tears that wanted to spring to her eyes.
Weiss looked up at her father, then, waiting to see what awful thing he'd make her do next.
“Very good. All is as it should be,” he said, and he gave her his best impression of a warm smile as he dropped his next bomb. “Don’t worry, my dear. When your engagement to your long-time boyfriend is announced I’ll make sure that she has as close to a front seat view as possible.” His voice became cold. “And remember what can happen if you say no and ruin my name.”
Oh.
Of course. There was no boyfriend, there never had been. There had been multiple attempts to hook her up with this or that extremely eligible bachelor, but nothing had ever stuck. Now, Weiss knew why, but she'd spent years wondering what was wrong with her. Whoever her father had picked out would be well connected and probably as cold as the ice Elsa could make on a whim.
Never as warm as Elsa was on the inside.
But she knew what saying 'no' meant, even if Jacques had never warned her. So she turned off the microphone and set it aside, then folded her hands in her lap again. It allowed her the chance to dig her fingernails back into her hands. "It should be the flagship piece of our collection. The six carat with the sapphire halo setting. Nothing less would be good enough for our family’s reputation.”
Smiling, Jacques leaned over and kissed Weiss’s head. “I love you, daughter.”
It was the coldest sentence he’d ever uttered.