Emma Grace Frost (faberges) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2017-06-28 08:33:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, emma frost (616) |
Who: Emma Frost
What: A narrative to show where her head's at
Where: Chez X-Men
Rating/Warning: Nightmares: There is some graphic description of dead people that Emma cares about and some talk about some of the bad things that happen in comics due to nightmares. Proceed with some caution.
During the day, it was easy enough to seem fine. Emma had perfected the art of seeming sometime during her college days and she'd been practiced in building walls around herself long before that. Being born into a family like hers, it had been easy. Her mother's eyes never in quite in focus, Hazel Frost would occasionally share little pearls of wisdom with Emma about trusting others, about being strong, about not making mistakes. They came to Emma at odd moments these days in the sticky hot Texas heat. There was some entertainment to be had by acting petty and getting under the skin of people who annoyed her. In the mansion, Emma always looked a vision in white, hair always styled to perfection, makeup practically airbrushed on, and a cool smile on her face. She was fine as far as anyone with eyes could tell, and that's how she liked it. She made a point to pass Kitty Pryde often enough in the hallways and pretend she didn't notice her; just one of the many subtle mind-games that were second nature to Emma. "Never let them see you sweat," Hazel had once said, and while Emma knew her mother had made many mistakes in life, most of her advice had been fairly sound. If she were being honest, Emma could admit that it wasn't a constant stream of misery at the Mansion. For every little curious glance from Jean Grey, there were students who got to live their lives, blissfully free of the terror that had followed mutants back home. As much as she tried to downplay it, Emma loved her students and had a fondness for children who needed molding. One afternoon, she paused to watch two engrossed in some silly reality television show, not a real worry in their heads. Emma's vision went blurry for a half second before she could hear her mother's voice in her ear telling her to, "avoid children because they'll absolutely ruin you." There were tasks to throw herself into for the school and when the boredom grew to a dangerous point, Emma felt relieved for them. She researched and made phone calls and decided on timelines for when she'd need to go to office supply stores to get whatever objective done. She made extensive to-do lists, divided between professional and personal projects, organized where she could, and focused on the mind numbing aspects of being an administrator. If she could find something to keep her occupied, she thought, perhaps she'd feel less rotten in time. And if she couldn't get herself to feel happy, she'd at least manage to be useful. The brief glimpses of genuine hope she felt were few and far between and always tempered by memories of the reality she'd escaped. She'd message Scott some stupid little note and distract herself for hours or debate whether she should reach out to him telepathically about any stray thought that crossed her mind, if just to talk or see him from a distance in a hallway and feel her heart flutter like she was a child again. Then she'd smell decade's old liquor on the wind and a voice in her ear would say, "Love is a fool's errand." Mother hadn't been wrong about that. Nights were harder, but it was easy enough to escape the looks of consternation or little mental whispers that sometimes followed her through the halls when half the building was asleep. Emma knew herself well enough to recognize that she was lonely, that she felt guilty, and there were few outlets to get that out in any healthy way. ("Don't rely on any one person too much, darling, it'll only break your little heart," her mother had once slurred.) So when it was the appropriate time of night, she retreated to silk sheets and curled up on her side and tossed about for a few hours. If she was lucky, Emma was getting a little over an average of four hours of sleep a night, and that which she could get didn't leave her rested. Some nights, Emma would dream of the dead weight of Esme in her arms, but when she looked down, it would be her brother's face on the body. And then it was the girl who'd called herself Negasonic Teenage Warhead. And then it'd been Scott, skin sickly grey and bubbling like he was boiling away, even in death. In others, she'd feel herself being burned alive by a cosmic force that took away all of her body autonomy. As the Phoenix, the shell of Emma Frost would hurt her friends and laugh while Emma remained trapped and powerless to stop it. She'd make the world new and in her image and all the people in all the cities would have blank stares and bow before her glorious form, everything utterly perfect and wrong. A few rare nights, she'd wake up feeling the cold presence of Cassandra Nova's mind nearby and Emma would press herself against her headboard, eyes wide and searching for a woman who wasn't really there. Or Sebastian Shaw's laugh would ring in her ear and Emma's fist would fly out into the empty air as she woke. Sometimes, Emma dug through piles of dead children, all the students she couldn't save, and, unable to turn herself into a diamond, the skin on her hands would peel and crack and bleed until she could see the muscle underneath. Adrienne would be nearby, chuckling and clucking her tongue as Emma struggled. She couldn't stop, couldn't spare her sister a second glance, and she had the unshakable feeling that if she only dug deep enough there'd be one under the pile still breathing. It had taken her a full five minutes to catch her breath and make her hands steady after waking suddenly from that. One night, it'd been the outline of a Sentinel's glowing eyes looming menacingly through her classroom window, Medusa perched on its shoulder. ("One good turn deserves another, darling.") She'd shouted for her students to run, but they were all stuck in place, eyes wide in fear. She could still feel the flames as she sat up, suddenly awake and covered in a cold sweat. The world spun unpleasantly around her, and she decided it best to go for what was becoming a habitual late night run. Even the pre-dawn hours were uncomfortably hot, but that didn't stop her. When she became too unsteady or her legs felt like they might give out, she shifted to her diamond form, mind going blessedly quiet, and kept running until the sun was up. At the rate she was going, she'd need to invest in extra-sturdy sneakers to keep up with her demand to move. Maybe she should have just gone, Emma thought fairly often. A new life in a new city under a new name might have been a nice reprieve. ("Never outstay your welcome.") But Emma wasn't certain she'd earned that much of a break. Maybe she belonged with ghosts and unrequited loves and people who thought, perhaps not without cause, that they were better than her. Maybe this was her punishment for what she'd done with the Sentinels. Maybe she was already dead and this was some drab purgatory where she was meant to suffer quietly, everything she truly wanted within sight but just out of reach. Emma heaved a sigh and swiped a hand across the fogged mirror as early morning light poured in through the closed window. Hair hanging wet around her face, she looked herself over before delicately dabbing concealer under each eye until the dark circles disappeared. When she emerged from the bathroom that morning, her lips were red, her cheeks were highlighted, and her smile, to all outside observers, was genuine. She seemed fine. That was how she liked it. |