Kerrigan's Side of the House, 29 Chimera Court, Friday Early Morning

[on_her_korhal]

Fandom still held some surprises after all, as it turned out.

A certain young blonde telepath had shown up on Kerrigan's doorstep last night. That... had been a surprise. On the other hand, she had mused, it was almost as if the island were actively trying to cast its more talented inhabitants into her lap. Far be it from her to look a gift horse in the mouth.

So to speak.

Kerrigan had kept her curiosity in check the previous night, but Emma's mental state had been a little-- hm. Useful? She supposed she could find out how useful now, in the morning. And so by time dawn broke, Kerrigan was heading back into the room where she had left Emma a mattress, two cups of coffee in her hands.

[[ for one, nfb, and warning for potential consent issues later on in the thread. ]]

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[icecoldfrost]

Emma hadn't wanted to go back to the dorms last night, since the visual reminders of her altercation with Winston would raise far too many questions. So, after visiting Miss Cabot, she'd gone to the one place where she figured she was guaranteed a couch for the night and few questions asked.

But she was already awake, and practically twitching out of her skin. She'd thought she was fine. After just over three years, Emma thought Winston couldn't get under skin anymore. But apparently, he could still manage just fine.

"Good morning," she said managing a wan smile. "I didn't think it was possible for you to be any more of my favorite teacher, and then you come bearing coffee."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

Kerrigan offered her a cup. Her mouth twitched with something that could be mistaken for fondness, or maybe amusement, even if it was fleeting-- though what it really was, was calculated.

"I always felt coffee could solve all the universe's woes," she offered, "At least in the mornings."

[icecoldfrost]

"Not if it's decaf," Emma quipped, taking the cup gratefully. "Why bother drinking fake-coffee? That's what I'll never understand about humanity."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"Because they can't handle the real stuff," Kerrigan said, sitting down on the mattress with her own cup. "It makes for a nice metaphor, doesn't it?"

[icecoldfrost]

"Only concerned with the surface taste and afraid of what's underneath?" she asked, smirking slightly in amusement. "Do I pass your class for managing not to shake people until the stupid fell out?"

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

Kerrigan took a sip of her coffee. It didn't register as anything to her palate. At best, she was vaguely aware of the nutrients going into her system. "Barely," she said. "I think I saw you twitch once or twice."

She turned her head towards Emma. "So should I expect anyone unpleasant on my doorstep today?"

[icecoldfrost]

"No one you can't handle," Emma promised, breathing deep and letting the scent soothe her. "My older sister - the one I can't read - and my father would be the only ones who might track me down, I doubt they'll come looking now, when I'll see them this afternoon."

At her lawyer's office. That thought was on the forefront of Emma's mind, not even shielded.

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"Your father," Kerrigan mused aloud. "He came looking for a fight, then. Of course..."

[icecoldfrost]

"I think he thought I'd cave, actually," Emma mused. "He came prepared for a fight, but I think he thought he'd just have to bully his way past a few teachers. He wasn't prepared for me to take an active role."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"What does he want?" she asked, sipping her coffee again. "Incarceration? Therapy? Death?" Her lips curved with irony. "A lobotomy?"

[icecoldfrost]

"He says it was all just a big misunderstanding and he wants me to come home," Emma replied, sarcasm dripping from her tone as she offered the memory up for Kerrigan to rifle through if she wanted.

"Two years ago? I might have wanted to believe him badly enough to go home. Now? I've got college ahead of me, money in the bank, and a job. I don't need his approval anymore."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

She slid easily into the memory, paying attention briefly to its contents - oh, Arcturus, you would have liked this man - you'd be like two peas in a pod. But she also nudged ever so gently at the sliver of a channel offered to her. Tiny enough to go undetected, but enough to give her the promise of a potential back door... given a little more of a push.

"Well, he is clearly lying," Kerrigan agreed, letting her anger at Arcturus, cold as it was, flicker briefly past her features. It would serve her well here, and she did so dislike slimy, self-righteous tools. "Of course, with scum like that, it's like remarking the sun's shining. Men like him like to turn us into puppets."

[icecoldfrost]

"He doesn't even know I'm a telepath," Emma replied dully. "If he did, I can't decide if he'd be gleeful and try to use me, or be furious that he's got a mutant daughter."

For all her talent and practice, the nudge went completely unnoticed. She was exhausted physically and emotionally and around someone she trusted. Even if Kerrigan hadn't been so many leagues above her in talent, it was doubtful that Emma would have noticed.

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"He'd hide the latter to exploit the former," Kerrigan replied. "His kind does that. Then the minute you outlive your usefulness, he'll find a way to get rid of you conveniently."

Not that she was bitter about anything...

[icecoldfrost]

"Oh, he has a habit of that." That wasn't news to Emma, sadly. "I would be child number two to 'go away' and not come back."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

Kerrigan snorted. "Bastard," she said. "I have ways of dealing with men like him..."

The key to subtle telepathic manipulation was getting people in the right mindset, so they didn't realise you were tooling away in their mind. She wasn't going to make the same mistakes she did with Raszagal.

[icecoldfrost]

"That might cause more problems than it solves," Emma said sourly. "He's rich. The family is Old Money, and we're pretty well-known internationally. Even with Winston out of the way, that gives Adrienne his resources. And while Winston has plans for a reason, she's just a vindictive bitch."

Although it was so tempted to just rewrite his brain to leave her alone. Sadly, Adri would notice and take action on her own. At least Winston had her on some sort of leash.

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"You're thinking too small," Kerrigan said, lightly. "Arcturus Mengsk abandoned me to be ripped apart by the zerg; he was a man a lot like your father. I killed his cronies and ripped his empire out from under him -- and then I could sit back and watch him flail around in the dirt..."

[icecoldfrost]

"Oh, I'm working on that." Emma, smiles like that weren't reassuring to most people. "I've been accepted to one of the most prestigious colleges in my world for the fall, and I've been networking the entire time I've been here. Not just Fandom-people, but important people in my own world."

"Add in my knack with the stock market, and with any luck, within seven to ten years everything he values will be gone, and while he can't prove it, he'll know it was me."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

Not reassuring to most people, no. Plenty assuring to Kerrigan, whose smile back wasn't exactly reassuring either.

It was a little like putting two sharks in a room together.

"Seven to ten?" she drawled. "I'm sure you could build yourself a queendom in less, given the right backing."

Not that she was trying to encourage rampant and disproportionate retribution or anything...

[icecoldfrost]

"Well, yes, but the trick is to do it without leaving anything that ties his fall to my rise," Emma admitted. "It makes a much better poetic story of Frost Girl Gone Rebel achieving her fame and glory even as her father fades from relevancy if they can't prove I had anything to do with his decline. It's just symmetry and a sign of the new age and all that babble."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"Poetry, while pretty, outlasts its usefulness quickly," Kerrigan said, and cocked her head. "But call me an oldfashioned kind of gal-- I like to gloat."

A pause, then: "What of him now, then?" she asked, mental fingers prying ever-gently at the weak spot she'd created.

[icecoldfrost]

"Who says I can't still gloat?" she asked. "But now..."

Her fingers clenched slightly, reflexively, at the thought of Winston in her territory. With her people. This was her place, and the anger she'd kept bottled up for the last day surged dangerously close to the surface.

She took a deep breath and focused on tamping it down, channeling it into continuous, passive scans of the island. She was keeping track of where her family went and who they talked to, as best she could, and her attention to that made her less-aware of the rest of her psionic surroundings.

"For now, I'm letting the law run him in circles," she continued after a moment. "If we can't get him to back off permanently, at least this will give me some breathing room to plot my next move."

"I've hopefully planted the seeds of rebellion in my youngest sister, Cordelia. With any luck, maybe I'll get an ally on the inside."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

The anger had been enough. Kerrigan's mind slipped in with it. "Should you need the help, come to me," she said aloud, but elsewhere, psionically, somewhere between here-and-there in Emma's mind, she twisted the words: Come when I call.

Simple phrases worked best. The combination of half-infestation, half-telepathic control she'd used on Raszagal had been too blunt, too obvious. The Matriarch had broken through it eventually. And the process to infest another psionic was both dangerously unstable and too-obvious for those on the island who still remembered River's fate (Anakin).

But both those cases had been years ago, and now she needed only a firm but subtle touch - and Emma's trust in her - to weave a web of subconscious loyalty.

She could use Emma, some day. When the girl was off the island, and it would look like her own untampered choice.

"Like I said, I know a few ways to deal with men like him," she said, her smile feral, "and not all of them are immediately obvious. You aren't alone, Emma."

[icecoldfrost]

She wouldn't need much to weave that web. There were other memories in there, ones of the Other-Kerrigan, and how loyal that Emma had been to her, along with this Emma's admiration and trust of this Kerrigan.

"How am I not alone?" she finally bit out, frustrated. "I know you'd help, but right now I don't have time for anything elaborate. My friends will just charge in and do something stupid, and the most any of the teachers can do is stall. Everything rides on Miss Cabot being as good as people say she is, or I might end up in that house and never be seen again."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

Kerrigan pulled the web tight, making sure it would last, then retreated graciously.

She had not made it to Queen Bitch of the Universe without making sure there were certainties. Now all she'd need was time, and she had plenty of that.

"You're not alone because you have them at your beck and call," she said, with not even rudimentary consideration for how Emma's friends might feel about that assessment. "You have an army, should you wish it, and you have allies. What else do you want? People like you and I don't follow, we don't bank on one option and wait around, we lead. And there are always options for us."

Though really, she just meant 'I'.

[icecoldfrost]

"So say I have an army." Which she did, Emma just didn't want to admit it. "There isn't an outright war I can march them in to."

"Yes, I could have my 'queendom' in three years or less if I went the ruthless route. But I'd rather take my time, aim for five, and have my position secure from retaliation. Then I can take on the rest of the world."

Look, she didn't plan small. You had to give her that.

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

That... given.

Not that Kerrigan cared anymore, at this point. Emma could disagree with her all she wished - when it came down to it, she'd do what Kerrigan wanted. (And if that came with an empire in some other world? That would only be useful.)

"If your father locks you up, you'll have a war, like it or not," Kerrigan said, lightly. "But I'm hardly going to criticise you for having ambition. Now that would be mightily hypocritical of me."

[icecoldfrost]

"Then it'll be his fault when the casualties pile in, not mine," Emma replied, an undercurrent of viciousness peeking through.

"But what are your ambitions? I mean, not that I don't love having you as a teacher, but I can't see you wanting to be an educator forever. I mean, if I can ask that."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"That's the spirit," Kerrigan said, completely without irony. Then her mouth curved up. "I'll be leaving soon, I'm afraid," she said, "I've been laying low here for a while, and I'll be laying low at home a little longer. But not forever. I have a job to finish."

If anyone on this island got that without going into a snit about Kerrigan being 'evil' or whatnot, well.

[icecoldfrost]

Emma was too tired to try and hide her reaction, and her face fell. "Now how am I going to come up with new and interesting ways to traumatize my classmates?" she sulked. "Unless you'll let me keep the Ghost suit..."

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"I can give you my number," Kerrigan replied.

It'd be easier to keep tabs on when Emma left the island that way. "You're welcome to keep the suit. I have no need for it."