Disclaimer: I don't own anything Charlie Bone. Miranda Arthur is mine though.
All she really wanted was to be left alone; to maybe enjoy the dance. Not that the dance would have ever gone on smoothly; not when you had good and evil in a room together for a couple hours. Chaos; fights and fires everywhere and all Miranda wanted to do was leave quietly.
Zelda of course couldn't possibly just let her do something like that. No of course not; Zelda would want to get in as many jabs as she possibly could. Not that anything Zelda said bore any kind of relevance. She was simply trying to bait and annoy Miranda; unfortunately for her on this particular night it was working.
"You're such a goody-goody." Zelda said spitefully; the comment itself really didn't mean anything to Miranda. She was just sick and tired of Zelda always up in her face even when she really had nothing to do with anything related to the Red King's Children. In any case; the moment those words left Zelda's lips was when Miranda used her power. Curling around her mind like inky tendrils; Miranda took hold of her thoughts and memories.
"A goody-goody you say?" Miranda asked inside her head. Zelda gasped as her most painful memory was pulled to the surface; the memory of Manfred breaking up with her.
"If I was a goody-goody; would I do something like this?" Her voice was like velvet. Zelda shivered as the memory began to replay over and over in her head. Miranda stood beside her within the memory a gentle and peaceful smile on her face as she watched with her.
"Painful isn't it? Manny, didn't love you enough to stay did he?" Miranda asked with laughter ringing in her voice. Zelda was crying for him not to go; the tears pouring down her face.
"But, I wonder who he's leaving you for." Miranda continued thoughtfully, completely ignoring Zelda's sorry state; and at this she twisted Zelda's memory to show Manfred running to the arms of some other woman. Zelda screaming for him as he happily walked off with the girl hand in hand; only to have the memory start all over again from the beginning and ending with a different girl.
"Almost looks like he'd be happy so long as it was anyone other than you, doesn't it?" she asked silkily. "Oh, bet you anything he'd even be happier with me, and we both know he hates me." Miranda said as the memory replayed only this time the girl Manfred ran to was a copy image of Miranda and he kissed her passionately in a dark hallway. Zelda frantically dragged her fingers through her hair; she could barely breath it was so emotionally painful. Out of all the girls; this was the worst.
"I wonder," the real Miranda murmured with a bored sort of curiosity in her voice. "Would you lose your mind completely, if I just left you here like this?"
"I bet you would," she said and Zelda whimpered tearfully, watching Manfred as he left her over and over.
Miranda sighed, knelt down and wrapped her arms around Zelda's shoulders as if she was comforting her and even spoke with a soothing voice.
"Oh, don't cry Zelda dear," She said as a sadistically amused smile spread across her face. "I'm still here."
And letting go of her Miranda began to laugh. It was a cruel laugh full of an evil so unpleasant it almost made Harken sound like an angel.
"You have no idea how much entertainment," Miranda continued with a cheerful and entirely innocent kind of attitude. "I would get just from watching you fall apart right here on the floor."
Miranda held her arm and gently help Zelda sit in a chair close by, she was a shell shocked, shaking mess, but physically she'd remained standing through the whole thing. Miranda placed a glass of punch beside Zelda on the table, a slight look of innocent concern on her face as though she hadn't just done what she did.
"That was just a warning," she said coldly. "The next time think it a good idea to try and provoke me, I really hope you remember what just happened and refrain from following through or I will lock you away in all the worst of your memories for the rest of your life."
"You look terrible," That twisted innocently concerned tone back in her voice, she began to walk away then paused to look at herself in the window. "Maybe the black dress would have been a better choice for the evening after all . . ."
She wandered away, cheerfully airy and innocent smile back on her face. Miranda Arthur, a goody-goody? Oh, hardly. More like a sour candy in a sweet coating of chocolate.