1963-11-16 - Commedia dell'Amora
Summary: Girls' day out, and imagine what sort of secrets are shared!
Related: N/A
Theme Song: None
amora rogue 


Wildenstein Mansion boasts the trappings of a great home in the city. Opulence in marble floors, white plaster walls, and white features everywhere must be exhausting. By contrast, Bellator Farms is everything but white. Mud and goats do not often mix for pristine shades of bleach cotton and ivory. Yet the young woman who appears on the doorstep of the mansion better suits the canon of the farm — or ranch, properly — than the Upper West Side.

Scarlett's impressive leather boots tread a relatively dirt-free pace across the floor, her leather coat belted around her waist. A coronet of leaves, the likes of which belong nowhere in Midgard, adorn her braided hair, and she hands over two pairs of gloves to another of the Asgardian servants.

"See these mended, please?" Polite words as she diverts towards the study in search of an elixir flavoured of honey and fire, better than plum. The drink card is never far out of reach. She won't have to go far, and pouring herself something takes up valuable time.

In the meantime, she flips over a coin. The wards presumably do not much like that coin, but they do not bring down evil and despair on her, so there's that.

*

Reality warped outside the mansion's back door, the wardings such that Amora did not return directly within the house, but the grounds were fair game. Once again she had departed from the manor, but it had seemed her new servitude to Lady Sif, was looser than other ladies would expect of the possible future Queen.

As a result, Amora had taken full advantage and had been out and about quite enjoying herself. Be it shopping, luring in lovers, or gossiping and teasing Midgard's more powerful magic users—it was all quite entertaining to her.

Decidedly the Enchantress needed that entertainment. For how else would she survive being linked in servitude to Lady Sif who had /somehow/ ensnared the Thunderer's heart? Decidedly, it was better for everyone involved if she was not present overly.

So the blonde Asgardian let herself inside with a click of her heels and a glance spared down the hall where she could hear the movement throughout the house. A small hmm escaped her as she made her way around to help herself to drink—and as a result ran directly into Scarlett's person pouring herself a drink. She paused, and a ruby lipped smile pulled over her expression.

"Hello, darling. How nice to see you about. So nice."

*
Her silhouette painted against the floor in exaggerated relief, Scarlett raises the glass to her lips and that pantomime of something far more illustrious and curious flashes upon an ivory wall. The elaborate arrangement of her braids is somewhat windblown but distinct, a lattice of fine, thin plaits spooled around her central foxfire braid that might as well be a diorama, in some fashion, for a DNA helix.

Pausing as the kick ignites her senses, she lowers the rim a few centimeters from her glossy lips and skirts a look towards the doorway. Even the finest treatment by servants cannot silence the whisper of hinges, the staccato clack of heels falling like artillery on the polished floor. Too bad for them.

Her head lifts a little higher, and the tense grace in her figure shifts on a level usually associated with hunting cats scenting something else, be that a predator or particularly chancy prey. Either way, the bohemian gives the slightest smile when Amora sweeps through in that inestimably Asgardian fashion. "Never fail to make an entrance, my lady?" Even distraught, torn from a jail cell, she manages that, doesn't the Enchantress?

The glass she restores to its place on the sideboard, still half-full. Ruby lips meet rouged amusement, and the fell glitter of those lovely baleful eyes contemplating much. The scent of pine, or something close to pine, dances around her, the resins in the air and seeping into the bloodstream. Wherever she has been, it wasn't a shopping mall or Times Square. Maybe she lurked inside the Rockefeller Christmas tree while they were stringing lights up, scaring the bejesus out of poor workers. The notion is pleasant enough.

"One must keep themselves preoccupied somehow. I believe you are familiar with the predicament better than some." Her fingers flash gracefully as she sketches a movement with her hands, emphasis done without care.

*

Amora arched golden brow upwards, leaning against the door frame as she watched the redhaired mortal for a long moment in silence. Then she was shrugging dramatically with a roll of her shoulders as she stepped inside and helped herself to the very same drink that Scarlett had poured for herself.

"Indeed," She smirked, and reached for a glass to pour herself a drink. A glance barely spared for Scarlett's sake as she put the bottle away with a delicate motion. All grace in motion. The perfumed scent of juniper and an undercurrent of something musky wafted up from her person as she leaned into Scarlett's personal space. A pause spared only to sip at her recently acquired drink.

"Hm," The Enchantress offered without explanation for a long moment, eyeing the mortal before her. "Scarlett, have you ever heard tell of the magic user named Baron Karl Mordo?"

*
ROLL: Rogue +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 97

He's a name that falls out of the blue, and the young woman looks up. She reaches again for the glass with its finger-width of spiced Alfjar mead, if sunshine in a bottle can be called that, and the swish releases another perfumed blast of spice on a bouquet that wants to sizzle. She takes a slow, mindful sip. It's the only way for a mortal, especially, to appreciate that sort of delicate punch to the gut and knife to the ribs. The drink's sensation goes fizzy to slaying in a heartbeat.

"Do I…" A look into the glass brings a pause, her fingernails clattering against the side. Habit brings her to settling it down on the sideboard again, and she takes a measured spin around the room, her movements even and graceful for the most part. "Yes, I have heard his name. The title, I believe, is Eastern European? Certainly not British, though barons they have."

And safely clasping her hands behind her, she does a full orbit around Amora before coming to a pause, possessing her space with an absolute effortless regard. Theirs is a distance fading and shrinking, time describing whatever whim pulls redhead to blonde. "You have need for an audience, my lady, for your next tale? For what is a story if naught would hear of your acquisitions or achievements in the skein of seidr?"

Scarlett's faintly lifted lips inscribe their truth and their curiosity with mirth that almost, almost touches on sly.

Almost.

*

A sip of the drink followed as Amora tilted her head to the side and listened with an intensity that had made many a mortal and immortal cower beneath those verdant eyes. Then the Enchantress was slowly inclination of her head.

“Tis from the country that your people call ‘Transylvania’? I believe is the name. I can never keep the mortal’s names for such places consistent for long it would seem.” Another sip of her drink and she glanced down at it.

“He and the Sorcerer Supreme have some manner of connection. Neither of which appear to wish to give me the direct answer. Doctor Strange was rather in a tiff over it—his aura changed most alarmingly. And the Baron himself was not willing to discuss it at length, other than to say that Doctor Strange requires monitoring.” An irritated curl pulled at her upper lip.

“I intend to find out what occurred, as I dislike being uninformed. Especially since the Baron has recently become.. Hmm, a pet, you might say.”

The faintest trace of a glitter enters her eyes, a ghost of deepening azure thrown by the shadows and her bangs veiling her face. "Lady Amora, you wicked creature." The pronouncement comes with an arch air, indolent as much as a touch arrogant, and clearly amused. There are few thorns upon this rose, for all she might be sculpted from ruby. "A pet from Transylvania, the heartland of a certain Vlad Tepes known to harass the city? That surely must be a connection, if idle."

The languid traipse it is not: she moves with a certain purpose, mediating a middle distance between herself and that statuesque vision in gold and green. Her gaze traces after Amora, and does not linger anywhere for long, but takes in the whole. Scarlett's fingers drum a pattern against her palms, the neat cross of her wrists painted against that fabulously tailored coat. Leaves in her hair shiver, their shades almost unbelievably intense. They should be. Those trees do not grow on this realm, another of the nine.

"May I ask?" She's going to, but the forms must be observed. "What would induce a man such as the baron to want to monitor someone? Scrying is deadly invasive and rude. A fine way to be smacked over the nose with a newspaper, or fundamentally the same, as you and they would practice their arts. A reason, my lady, why I would never presume to stare into a mirror into your private chambers."

Another of those knowing little smiles plays its way out. How hard is that alcohol hitting her, anyways? Hard. Hard enough. Right? "No doubt some quarrel. Being uninformed is concerning, naturally. You would not wish a threat to your person by way of a pair ready to go out and duel at dawn, oh? In your lovely boots, I might be inclined to monitor him. There is a reason your pet wants to know things."

*

Amora was between one sip and the next of her drink when Scarlett’s demeanor caught her attention. How easy and readily the words came. Another sip followed and Amora cocked her head to the side as she inspected the mortal anew.

“I know not the manner of his title nor the means in which he came to hold those lands. Merely that he does.” A shrug, “I care little.”

Then the blonde was moving toward the door frame again, stepping out of the study with a click of her heels and sway of her hips. “I know not the reason beyond his stating that Strange is untrustworthy. A thing that I am recently empathetic to myself—being seen as such. Yet when I tried to speak the the Sorcerer Supreme I was rebuffed rather coolly. An unfair thing.”

“And my darling, if you tried to scry for me, you’d see a whole manner of indelicate things.” She winked, flashing white teeth. “All of which, if you’re interested in.. well, I’d invite you to.”

*

"Of course not." Agreement struck on that front originates out of a moment of reflectiveness. "Is it unfair? Possibly. Men have a way of discussing things behind closed doors without us. If they discuss them at all, that is. How different would life be if we came to a table with our points laid out, and a spirit of collaboration?"

Scarlett's time at Columbia has not been idle. Nor has she been entirely dense about the affairs of the Asgardian court, learning where the eddies of power are, where the back channels become manifest in matters great and small. Lessons for Sif to learn, sadly.

The laugh shimmers upon the air again and she raises her palm. "Truly, you would wish me to behold you at play as well as study? That is an invitation or a gauntlet." Her hands unclasp and she glances to the side, the corner of her mouth rising higher on the left than the right. "Maybe there is no difference. Can it be both?"

The leather coat gleams under the light, and then the buttery dissolution of shadows plunder their wake as she turns again, and glances to the window. "No, I doubt that's how you would prefer to be. You strike me as someone who would rather not be in the middle of anything. Almost anything. One must leave room for possibilities."

Coordinating her pace to sync up with Amora's, she drifts back. "So what do you do with such a pet? Dangle him at … I cannot imagine there are many things for that. Amusements? Chase your way to one corner of the dimension and back?"

*

Another sip, as Amora idly walks along the hallway, a click click of her heels on the wooden floors following and echoing her steps before her and Scarlett’s amble down the corridor could be seen by any.

“The offer was broached some time ago to the Trickster, he claimed you’d have no interest. I thought you might blush. It would seem neither of us truly can say we know you, can we?” She mused lightly. A smirk playing about on her lips.

“For me, darling, study and play can always be both.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder, sighing as she took another sip of her drink.

“As far as amusements? Well, he’s a decent bedfellow. And I do so love to play with men that think they can know my intentions or that they might manipulate me for their own ends. Tis a fun game that I so rarely get these days. I have no need to ‘dangle’ him at all. Merely the refreshing ability to have a man that knows his magic and his way around the female form once more. I truly missed that.”

*

“Quite.” Wherever they are in the mansion, there is alcohol. Wherever there is alcohol, well, there is a chance to pour a libation to the gods. Scarlett considers one of the bottles simply lingering, the work of a smart servant familiar with the tastes of princes and enchantresses alike. A bottle is picked up, idly swished this way and that, the contents sent into a spinning maelstrom so she might better determine whether the beverage is worthy of her interest and time.

A near thing, truthfully, but enough that she gestures to Amora with the base. “Your glass, my lady. A creature as fine as you ought not to be without something occupying her hands, at least that’s what most of my peers are inclined to think. A story as expansive as yours…” The slight arc of a smile follows afterwards, lasting only a moment, but sharp and clear as a frosty winter morning lit by the low sun for a dazzling shimmer.

Scarlett continues, “Well, we ought to drink to it.” So thus the glass will be topped up or, hell, the drink poured straight into Amora’s gullet if that’s what she wants. It’s a mostly steady tumble of liquor. “The Trickster and the Enchantress, discussing me in such a vein. Enthralling. I’m quite honoured.”

Her words convey that enough, a mild trace of something more honest beneath the amusement. “I pity that baron, you know. Has he any idea he’s trying to play catch-as-one-can with a tornado? You are something of a force of nature, you surely agree. Not to suggest in the least you’re uncivilized, my lady. But elemental.” Her lips part briefly, stealing into a chuckle. “I can’t wait to see what happens. I doubt he’ll quite realize what hit him.”

*
A cackling laugh follows as Amora allows her glass to be topped off, amusement thick within her gaze as she sips at the overly full glass in her hand with care. Even as her gaze lingered on Scarlett, inspecting her critically and noting each small shift in her demeanor with rapt focus.

“Well, it was a while ago, darling. When he wasn’t ‘Protector of Midgard’,” She rolled her eyes and twirled her finger around in the air before her.

“Oh, he knew me for who I was. My reputation is vast within the circles of those that use magic and the greater demesnes of power. He assuredly thinks himself able to be the master in the situation,” A smirk, “I give him credit for being able to carry on a conversation when I am there without a scrap of clothing. He does admirably well.” Again, another snickering of laughter.

*
The young woman’s ability to pour is honed by experience. That and she lives in bloody Greenwich Village. This is part and parcel of the neighbourhood. Protest, sing a few folk songs, look awesome in leather pants. Required as far as anyone cares for residency, see.

Scarlett flicks her gaze upwards and she breathes out a laugh. “Ah, so you don’t think of me at all nowadays. I see.” Her spin of the bottle is met by facing away, and putting it back on a shelf laden by other fripperies. The liquid sprinkled across her fingertips deserves to be licked away, the digits brought to her lips for an idle brushstroke and no more than that.

“Mastery of a person, not a situation, is bound to end up… binding. That is a credit, he can end up speaking and not tongue-tied.” Unlike some. Though Scarlett’s faint smile brightens a degree, her luminous eyes smoulder, shining bright, and she once again is on the move with all her usual kinetic dynamism. “I would rather be out and about, than confined, though I’m surprised you have not spoken to crossing the planes. Are you planning on keeping entertained over winter by staying at home?”

Such as home is here, anyways.

*
A dry look was shot back at the red haired mortal at the suggestion that she goes unthought of as of late. “Darling, I haven’t even spoken with the Trickster since I last saw him with you. Which puts a damper on the ability to converse..” She drawled, siping at her drink again. Then she fell somewhat silent by her standards, not speaking for a long time as they wandered idly through the corridors.

“I am to go where my Mistress commands. As Lady Sif currently holds that position, I am at her command. I am go as she desires. I know not what plans she has in store for the Winter, and I cannot say that I know what shall come. I have not attempted to divine it nor do I care to.” She downs the rest of her drink in hand with a morose look crossing her exquisite features.

“I do not desire to see her Queen upon the golden throne if I should cast ahead in time to see what might yet come. For I have seen that, again and again. Very rarely does she not take golden Asgard and the prince along in hand..”

*
The dry look is met by one as parched as the Dead Sea shore. Scarlett leans back against the wall and notes, “Times, they are a-changing. Or so a gentleman down in the Village likes to bang on about, and his latest recording seems to be thoroughly warning that nothing we see now is permanent. It will all split open, and we’d best prepare for it.”

Dire thoughts from the Nornsdottir? Not particularly. The notion causes little change in her blithe temperament, just that right balance of honey and iron to give a proper bit of spark, vim even. “Do tell me you’ve bothered to divine at least something. It cannot be all bad news. Even I have to imagine the Yule season will boast some diversions worthy of the name? It’s not all sandwiches, bad champagne, and an exhausting list of meetings among the fanciful.”

Amora’s pain is a reflected mirror, acknowledged by the slight tip of her head. “Maybe it is wise to look forward in the shorter term. Yours is a long life. Spoiling for a good party is hardly a loss, is it?” There’s that smile again, light as the moon’s radiance on the water. “Mm. Especially a memorable one. I might have to ask the Wolf Prince. He might be willing to slip me in. Us, if you ask very nicely.”

*
Amora pursed her lips together, as if displeased at the notion of seeking the fates on something as simple as a /feast/ day. She rolled her eyes, a exhalation of a sigh escaping her as she waved her hand and her glass refilled with whatever it was that she’d been drinking.

“Why should I?” She practically snarled, “To see Lady Sif and the Crown Prince happily offering each other gifts and love tokens? To see them smitten?” She arched a brow upwards. “I am /well/ aware what the Winter Festival entails. I care /not/ for it. ‘Tis Winter’s fault and I hate it so.” She muttered, as if the season were to blame for her woes.

“Every time I see him, tis an awkward painful thing. He tries to cheer my spirits and promises friendship and care and how I am forever ‘of Asgard’. I care not for it! Not when I have an eternity ahead of me to watch them fight and love and have /children/.”

*
With a flick of her fingers, the bohemian draws to a halt. Her shoulders square and she stands the straighter before the Enchantress, no longer knocked off her post by the mere presence or the hint of a thought going astray.

“I think you’re mistaken, my lady. I meant to say determine a point in the immediate future where you might discover an opportunity that is worth exploring. Where the threads intersect in a fascinating way, when you have the chance to rescue someone or gain whatever suits your desires,” explains the redhead, as if such things are effortless and blithe. Scarlett’s lilting voice warms. “Discover where your presence makes all the difference, and pursue those opportunities.”

She shrugs her shoulders under the leather jacket, and then smiles. “Let those who are smitten see nothing but themselves. You yourself have noted you have other things to play with.”

A glancing look. “Are you so certain you wish a child, my lady, or is it only the pain of his offspring with another?”

*
Amora rolled her eyes, her anger cooling just as quickly as it had come. Mercurial in the extreme was the Enchantress before, and now more so than ever once again. “I don’t rescue people, Scarlett. I don’t /care/ about people in general. Why should I bother?” She muttered over the rim of her glass.

“And aye, ‘tis the very thought of them having children that sickens me so.” She fell silent then, her gaze flickering back down to her glass as she nursed it and continued to walk. She paused though, leaning against a wall.

“Truth me told, I pray that Sif will leave me in Hel. It would be a kinder punishment.”

*
“You do not rescue them for your own gain, my lady?” The thought passes, and then she shrugs her shoulders, leaving the conversational point in abeyance. Scarlett’s in neither the mood or position to argue the point further.

Something else attracts her instead. “In Hel? Is there reason for you to venture there?” Is there concern flashing in her bearing, a tightening of the chest that brings her teetering to the abyss of awareness where the blithe facade cracks for a moment.

This is, of course, the highest form of Asgardian drama queening there is. On the other hand, this mortal, this Midgardner, knows a little of what Hel is. And Hela. She understands what that portends.

“Oh stars and Odin’s eye, this is dire.”

*
Amora for her part looked unruffled by the concept of going to Hela’s realms. Perhaps she’d been there before, perhaps not. But all the same it did not daunt her in quite the same manner it did Scarlett.

“I know not why she wants to go. Merely that she does. And demanded I go with her.” She shrugged, looking down at her drink.

“I wouldn’t say dire per say, if she’s going to be Queen she has plenty of reasons to go there. Who can say /why/ other than she? I know not my mistress’ mind, nor do I ever wish to.”

*
“I see,” Scarlett replies. “Then I shall not trouble you further upon the matter. You have already been patient and, in your fashion, kind by speaking of it. I would only ask that you not tarry there too long. The world is dreadfully dull without your presence.”

Let that stand upon its own. She raises her arms over her head, and leaves a stretched arch that lifts her from palms to toes.

An easy shift, and then she pivots, easily enough given to conversation or letting Amora go.

*
“I did not tell Thor, I have walked that path once of informing him of what others keep.. And I shall not attempt to tell me aught again. Not when it burned me so last time.” She muttered, her expression darkening.

“He still thought to hold me responsible for things he did not know, as if I maliciously did not tell him about the frost giants before.” She rolled her eyes.

“This time I have kept things from him, things in which his Lady Sif shall explain to him, or not—Of course, she won’t be accused of things like I have been..” She downed the rest of her drink morosely.

“I both hate and love that man..”

*

Scarlett offers the slightest of smiles. “I believe the same could be said for you on the string of broken hearts and glorified lives you have touched with your own. Those jilted by your restless spirit moving on will never be the same for it.” Her words fall with a soft, rose-petal cadence and the force measured only in a reflective state of mind. “Have a thought for a moment, perhaps. It does not lessen whatever wrongs he did you, or their state. But you have caused upheavals in your smile and a gesture of favour here or there. Playing faerie bride, as you say, doesn’t come without consequence.”

This time… Ah, this time, hers is a gentle look towards the window and the city beyond. “This time you play another game. After that, another. And so it will go through the years, even I foresee that.”

And that much she can offer with a faint turn of her fingertips, examining her nails where they shatter the light. “Play well, my lady. The outcome is, if nothing else, bound to be memorable.”

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