[center][img]https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/f0e0a47af971.png[/img][/center] [sup][h1][b][center][color=black] E M M A F R O S T[/color] [color=#98c0b7]E M M A F R O S T[/color][/center] [/b][/h1][/sup] [hr] [color=8cafe0][right]𝕀 𝕙𝕠𝕑𝕖 π•ͺ𝕠𝕦 π•œπ•Ÿπ• π•¨ 𝕨𝕖 𝕙𝕒𝕕 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣π•ͺπ•₯π•™π•šπ•Ÿπ•˜ π”Έπ•Ÿπ•• π•ͺ𝕠𝕦 π•“π•£π• π•œπ•– π•žπ•– π•’π•Ÿπ•• 𝕝𝕖𝕗π•₯ π•₯𝕙𝕖𝕀𝕖 π•‘π•šπ•–π•”π•–π•€[/right][/color] [hr] [color=silver][indent]β€œYou know what the world does to women like me, Scott,” Emma Frost spoke. Her voice was low but carried like a knell in the quiet as her hands pressed firmly to the dressing table; the entire room had the scent of their life together and her silken garments clung to her frame like armour. She was a terrible beauty then in the half-light that poured in from outside. She had become a cold geography of herself. Carved by sleepless nights; rage clinging to her. β€œThey see what their eyes see and nothing more than that. Nothing more beyond that. They admire the shine. Never the cost.” She turned and paced away. β€œAnd then when I am clever, I am conniving. When I am strong, I am cruel. When I lead, I am dangerous.” The room dimmed and everything shimmered beneath her skin, all restless and electric with nowhere but one place to strike. Her head turned and a glacial stare met Scott Summers. β€œDon't [i]you[/i] dare look at me now like I’m a fucking problem to solve.” β€œEmma,” Scott breathed out with an exhaustion – his own patience, a now ragged spiral that was circling down and down and yet he held on to his better thoughts. β€œYou didn’t just cross a line here. You obliterated one, and you’re spiraling, this isn’t you–” She turned so quickly that the light seemed to recoil with a lash of her white silk and the sound of heels striking the hardwood. "Oh yes." Her once beautiful eyes were then radiant with a turbulent clarity and she closed the distance between them both. β€œIt’s [i]exactly[/i] who I am, Scott.” For a moment she wore a thin and terrible crescent of a smile as her jaw clenched. β€œYou know it is. You used to like it.” Scott tensed in response, but reached forward to place his hand on her shoulder only for her to pull away violently. β€œDon’t touch me,” she hissed and paced restlessly again. β€œYou loved us. Loved this room. Only loved who I was [u]here[/u]. Calm Emma. Quiet Emma.” She took in a long breath and found herself at the window, staring out and below. β€œYou want to lecture me?” she sighed, her words threaded through with a mocking tone. β€œAbout what I did? The consequences? Your rules? Go for it.” From the other side of the room, worlds away, Scott’s face hardened to a restraint. β€œYou killed a man.” There was a long stretch of silence where neither of them looked at each other as the words just continued to fall around them, weightless and heavy both. Waiting to find a surface to collide to. Eventually, she whispered out. β€œOh honey, You think that’s the whole truth?” Her bitterness soaked around her until every aspect of her countenance was coated in all of it. A woman defending herself to the end. β€œYou only think you know what I had to do.” Her eyes glistened. β€œI did it to save her.” Emma stood rigid at the window as her shoulders heaved to hold her upright and Scott shifted toward her. To his wife. It was a single step at first but he continued to her. He watched her hands press cloyingly to the fabric of her dress to clutch at it like it had become her last tether to the earth. He saw the tightening in her jaw. Her every emotional restraint as it moved like a maelstrom beneath the surface. His own grief softened the angles of his face and he reached out again. β€œPlease Emma,” this time his words came soft and he whispered her name as if the balm of softness would aid the wound he was trying to heal with his bare hands. β€œDon’t.” A serrated and hauntingly raw warning from pursed lips. β€œDon’t you [i]dare[/i] come closer to me.” And he stopped. Halted completely mid step and a breath was held as his chest tightened. He stared back at her with a flickering pain and confusion; willing for the part of him that never backed down to continue. β€œIf you get any closer to me Scott,” she whispered back to him dangerously. Her features sharpened like a blade as the clenching of her jaw brought the diamond form uncontrollably to the surface. β€œThen I will tear the memory of your touch out of my own mind. And I’ll rip every memory of myself from you and I will burn them.” This wound would not close, not with Emma willingly stabbing at it still. β€œI killed a man to save her.” The words were torn out of her like something she’d been keeping jammed between her ribs. β€œDo you understand that, Scott? Yeah. I waded into filth and horror and I did it [i]gladly[/i] because her life was worth it to me. And here you are, drawing your moral lines and telling me I crossed them.” It was only then that she stepped to him and her eyes burned with grief that was disguising itself as fury. β€œAnd she [i]still[/i] died,” she continued. Her voice had bent into something that sounded cruel as the truth cracked through. β€œSo don’t you dare come in here to scold me for this. Not now.” She gave a laugh that was a low and venomous half sob. β€œI’m the only one of us willing to make these calls. You just want me to be palatable. You would have me keep my hands tied behind my back. Is that who you married? [i][b]Please.[/b][/i]” It was like watching a star collapse. All light and violence and inevitability and Scott could only watch it happen. Emma was never more beautiful than when she was furious because her fury was the last veil she wore before completely breaking and tonight, in their bedroom he saw it all. The same woman that would lie beside him with confidence and love was shaking under the weight of her own grief. That same grief spilled out in shards too sharp for him to hold and she twisted her words into knives that slipped to the parts of him that were the easiest to wound and God help him that he couldn’t just hold her. That she wouldn’t just let him hold her. She was made all of anger and malice, and still all he could see was every tremble in her breath and the way she swallowed back every sob, still, conquering all. Even her own emotions. β€œYou think me to have all the tools for greatness but you would have never done what I did Scott, and [i]good for you.[/i] You wouldn’t. That’s why I did. That’s why I do. The voices of my better angels are always drowned out by my need to [b]win.[/b]” [hr] [color=8cafe0][right]𝕀 π•¨π•’π•Ÿπ•₯ π•ͺ𝕠𝕦 π•₯𝕠 𝕙𝕦𝕣π•₯ π•π•šπ•œπ•– π•ͺ𝕠𝕦 𝕙𝕦𝕣π•₯ π•žπ•– π•₯𝕠𝕕𝕒π•ͺ, π•’π•Ÿπ•• 𝕀 π•¨π•’π•Ÿπ•₯ π•ͺ𝕠𝕦 π•₯𝕠 𝕝𝕠𝕀𝕖 π•π•šπ•œπ•– 𝕀 𝕝𝕠𝕀𝕖 π•¨π•™π•–π•Ÿ 𝕀 𝕑𝕝𝕒π•ͺ[/right][/color] [hr] [b][u]Now[/u][/b] Krakoa had not been built by Emma Frost's hands; but it was her willingness to believe in it that helped it thrived. Others more important and powerful than her had forged the treaties and coaxed the living earth into form. It was others that had bargained with something more ancient than language but it was Emma who had brought something rarer. The audacity to imagine a future where mutants thrived. Sitting on the council had provided her with a strange absolution that she couldn't have imagined and she would never admit that out loud, like many things. Each decision and judgement that passed over the island's fate drew her with singular steps further from the woman she had been. Krakoa had demanded she rise above wreckage and find her purpose among the living architecture and careful balance of power. The blood on her hands had not, and would not vanish. It just dried. Became part of the grain of her resolve and the island did not recoil from it or judge her for it. She spent her mornings walking its bioluminescent paths as if reacquainting herself with a world she'd dreamed of in secret once. She would descend from her balcony each day and make her way through the living wood of the habitat and enjoy the way morning light would spill over the island in soft golds and greens. She would breath in the air that hummed with mutant life. She had no urgency anymore and would let her gaze drift to watch the mutants race along the surf in groups together, and observe those that gathered in communal gardens between lessons. She watched it all. They were not her children, but they were all her children and as they each leaned into the sun, they planned their futures. They finally planned their futures. Emma Frost smiled. [/indent][/color]